


The Party

by tuppenny



Series: Growing Together [3]
Category: Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Implied Past Abuse, no sex but plenty of making out and stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-18
Updated: 2017-07-31
Packaged: 2018-12-03 20:01:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 20,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11539422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tuppenny/pseuds/tuppenny
Summary: Katherine's had it with her parents-- it's time to move out.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> To set the scene for this fic: 
> 
> It's December 1900  
> Jack & Katherine are both 19 (this would work with them being 17 in the 1899 strike if they both have birthdays in the latter half of the year)  
> They’ve been together for a year and a half now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jack and Katherine discuss classical music and Christmas parties.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the music referenced in this chapter if you want to set the mood, as it were :) : [Footprints in the Snow](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iq0x_gM8tZg)

Katherine and Jack were walking hand in hand through the gently falling snow.

“It’s like piano music,” Katherine said dreamily. “Like Debussy.”

Jack nudged her sideways, a question in his eyes.

“French composer,” she explained. “I think you’d like his music. It’s like a mix of Monet and Pissarro’s paintings. Or if Childe Hassam were French.”

He squeezed her hand. She always knew how to explain things to him in terms he could understand.

“D’you play, Katherine?”

“Piano?” She shrugged. “Passably. It’s one of the skills Mama thinks a well-bred young lady ought to know, so I know it, but I’m not very good.”

“Good enough ta know Debussy?”

She laughed. “Simple Debussy, sure. We’d be better off going to Carnegie Hall if you want to hear him played properly, though.”

“I just needs ta get an idea. Hear those snowflakes whirl. Paint some piano notes. Miss Medda’s lookin’ for a fresh backdrop, somethin’ wintry, she said, an’ I’m havin’ a tough time comin’ up with any ideas.”

Katherine stopped abruptly. “Footprints in the Snow!”

“What?”

“I’ll play you Footprints in the Snow, Jack. It’s a Debussy prelude, and it’s beautiful and modern—so modern that Mama almost didn’t let me learn to play it.” She leaned in to kiss him quickly on the cheek. “It’s like being wrapped in velvet and watching the snowdrifts pile higher. You’ll love it.”

He brushed her hair back from her face and drank her in for a moment, her long eyelashes sprinkled with snowflakes, her cheeks pink with cold, her sparkling joy at getting to share something she loved with him. He couldn’t get enough of this girl, he really couldn’t. She knew so much about so many things he’d never even heard of, and yet she never made him feel stupid for not knowing—instead, whenever they hit a gap in Jack’s knowledge, her eyes would light up with excitement at the chance to introduce him to something new, to add more colors to his picture of the world around him.

In Jack’s experience, most people liked to lord your ignorance over you, make fun of you for not knowing something you’d never had a chance to learn, mocking you or scorning you for being some backwards rube, but not Katherine. No, Katherine’s response was to beam her brilliant smile and pull back the curtain to a window he hadn’t even known was there, a window that let him look out onto something completely unexpected. And he loved her for that. He loved every inch of her, from the tips of her toes to the split ends in her curly hair, loved her for never laughing at his lack of knowledge, for expanding his world, for the sheer delight she took in helping him learn new things and in letting him teach her new things, too.

He leaned in to kiss her full on the mouth, propriety be damned. She leaned into his kiss, pressing one hand against his chest and gripping the back of his neck with the other. She tasted of honey and cinnamon, and he wanted more of that-- more of her. He flicked his tongue against her lips, and she parted at his touch, seemingly just as hungry for him as he was for her. The delicate brush of snowflakes falling onto his skin was heightened now that his eyes were closed, and he thrilled at the contrast between Katherine’s warmth and the winter’s chill.

“You’re beautiful,” he murmured when they came up for air. “You’re so beautiful, Ace, I can’t hardly stand it.”

She answered by pressing herself even closer to him, swallowing the rest of his words and thoughts with her kisses. He shivered as her eyelashes fluttered against his cheek, and he wound his fingers into her hair, burying his fists in her thick auburn tresses.

“Come to my parents’ Christmas party,” she said, breathlessly. “It’s a few weeks away still, plenty of time for you to get used to the idea. Mama always makes me and the girls play something from our repertoire, and I can play the Debussy for you. We’ll have food and mulled wine and sing Christmas carols and everything’s always lit up in candlelight—it’s like a fairytale come to life, Jack, it’s magical. And I want you there.”

He pulled back from her even as she leaned in to kiss him again. “I dunno, Ace, that sounds like a recipe for disaster. Your parents may not hate me, but they sure don’t like havin’ me in their house. An’ they’ll like it even less if I’m there at the same time an’ in the same room as all their fancy friends.”

Katherine tossed her hair. “Well, they’ll just have to get over it. Because if they want me there, that means letting you come, too.”

“I don’t have a fancy dinner jacket or nothin’, though. An’ I don’t know the table manners or the fancy conversation topics or how to tell the difference between a Vanderbilt an’ a Rockefeller.”

She tugged at his hands. “Come _on_ , Jack, it’ll be fun! And if it’s not, then we’ll either make it fun or slip out and go somewhere else. Please?” She gave him a puppy-dog look.

He grimaced and rubbed at the back of his neck. “I just ain’t sure, Ace. It could be kinda awful. People always wants things to be perfect at Christmas, an’ they never is, an’ I don’t wanna be the reason they ain’t.”

She sighed and ran her fingers along his jaw. “Okay, that’s alright. If you don’t want to, I won’t make you.” She flashed him a smile that showed she meant what she’d said. “I’ll just bring you some gingerbread after the party. The food probably would’ve been your favorite part, anyway.”

Jack fidgeted a little bit. “Well, ya know, I guess I’ll go.”

She blinked. “Really? Just like that?”

“Yeah, sure, I mean—what else am I gonna be doin’? Workin’? I bet I gets the night off excused if I says I’m goin’ ta the big boss’s house for dinner, right? An’ like ya said, if it don’t go well, we can always leave.”

She squealed and threw her arms around him in a tight hug. “Oh, Jack! Thank you, thank you! You won’t regret it, I promise. I’ll go tell my parents right now!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Historical notes: 
> 
> Debussy hated the impressionist label, but I don’t care, because that’s what it sounds like to me, and art is subjective.
> 
> Childe Hassam was an American impressionist painter who painted a lot of scenes of New York City. He had a solo auction show of his work in NYC in 1896 (although he made only $50 off of it) and lived there for many years. He's particularly well known for his flag paintings.
> 
> Carnegie Hall opened in 1891.
> 
>  
> 
> Non-historical notes: 
> 
> I know this was a short one, but I am reeeeeeally swamped right now, and it's either something short or nothing at all for a while, so... hopefully something short was the right choice. :) 
> 
> That said, I'm looking at 9 chapters to wrap up this story (although that's subject to change as I write), so don't worry, there will be lots more to read if you like it!


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jack attempts to learn table manners and Katherine makes the turn-of-the-century equivalent of a powerpoint presentation.

Jack was sitting at the Jacobs’ kitchen table on a Monday afternoon, squeezing an etiquette lesson into the short window of time between the end of Davey’s school day and the start of Jack’s workday. By all rights Katherine should’ve been the one teaching Jack the difference between a dessert fork and a dinner fork and training him to use a napkin properly, but Jack was too embarrassed to ask her. So he’d asked Davey. Davey had protested, saying he wasn’t qualified to teach Pulitzer-level table manners, but Jack wheedled and whined until his friend threw up his hands and gave in.

“Mabel, Mabel,” Davey warned. Jack jerked his elbows off the table and glared at his friend.

“I hates that stupid rhyme!”

“Well, if you’d stop putting your elbows on the table then you wouldn’t have to listen to it.”

 Jack huffed and shoveled in a mouthful of food. “Why’s it bad manners, anyway? What’s so scandalous about an elbow?”

“Jack! Wait ‘til you’re finished chewing to complain.”

“Mmmpf,” he grumbled, spraying crumbs across the tablecloth.

Exasperated, Davey folded his arms on the table and buried his head in them. “ _Hub rachmones_. Why did I agree to do this?”

“Mabel, Mabel!” Jack yelled gleefully, springing up and pointing at Davey with his fork.

“Ughhhhh,” Davey groaned. “Let’s move on to something else. Softening that accent of yours, maybe. Start talking, Jack.”

Jack rolled his eyes and sat back in his chair, which he tipped back onto two legs simply to annoy Davey. “Fine. I’m good with accents, an’ I gots some practice with this from the newsroom, so this oughta be a cinch.”

“Well, that sentence was a total failure,” Davey said wryly. “Want to try again?”

“Who died an’ made you Miss Manners?” 

“That’s why you’re _here_ , Jack! Geez. What’s wrong with you today?”

Jack tipped up his newsboy cap and rolled his shoulders. “Whaddya mean, somethin’s wrong with me?” 

“Don’t give me that, you know what I mean.” Davey leaned across the table and stared at Jack for a few moments. Then he nodded. “You’re scared, that’s what it is.”

Jack let his chair fall back onto the floor with a loud bang that drew a yelp from Les, who was reading a dime novel in the adjacent bedroom. “I ain’t a scaredy cat!” 

“I never said you were. I just said you were scared.” Davey drummed his fingers on the table. “So, what is it? Spill.” 

Jack sighed and began fidgeting with his abandoned cutlery. “I ain’t never gonna be ready for this party in time, Davey. There’s too much ta learn, an’ even if I knows all the manners, I still ain’t got the breedin’ ta pull this off.” He stabbed his fork at a mushy pea. “I’m gonna stick out like a sore thumb, an’ I’m gonna embarrass Ace. Not ‘zactly the Christmas gift she wants… Though I dunno what Christmas gift she wants, which is a whole nother can of worms.”

 “Hmm,” said Davey, scratching the back of his head. “For starters, you’re smart, so if you’d stop messing around an’ actually try to learn this stuff, you’d know it in no time. Second, breeding is mostly appearances. Dress up nice, act like you belong, ask people questions about themselves, an’ you’ll be a hit. Third, Katherine doesn’t embarrass easily. An’ if things don’t go smoothly –which might not even happen–, you know she’s not gonna get mad at you—she’ll get mad that her parents’ hoity-toity guests are superficial snobs.” Davey rubbed absently at a stain on the tablecloth. “And my fourth and final point—you are on your own with that Christmas gift, Jackie boy, ‘cause I ain’t got the slightest clue what Kath might want. A drawing, maybe? I dunno.”

Jack gave a short laugh. “Fair enough. Thanks for the pep talk.” He tugged at his cap again. “Thanks for the manners lesson, too. I gots ta vamoose now, though—editor’s been on a kick about punctuality lately. Says time is money, an’ he ain’t payin’ us for to show up late. Typical boss talk.”

Davey nodded. “And I’ve got homework to do. Gotta be top of my class if I want to have a chance at one of those Pulitzer scholarships.”

“You’re already top of your class.”

“Yeah, but I gotta stay there. Levi Silberman is breathin’ down my neck.” 

Jack smiled. “I don’t care how smart this Levi kid is; my money’s on you, Jacobs.” He moved to the window and pushed up the sash. “Study hard, kiddo. See ya Wednesday for dinner?”

“You bet.”

 

***

 

“…so you see, that’s why we should absolutely invite Jack to the Christmas party this year,” Katherine concluded. She’d typed up an entire speech about it, drawn figures and graphs to illustrate her points, and made sure not to make her pitch until her parents had finished their after-dinner digestifs—brandy for her father, madeira wine for her mother.

“No,” said her father.

“No,” said her mother. 

“But—did you not hear anything I just said?” Katherine said. “I presented you with a well-reasoned, factually supported, emotionally resonant case for inviting Jack, and all you can think to say to that is ‘no’? That’s hardly a good counterargument.”

Pulitzer shrugged and laced his hands behind his head. “I’m your father. I don’t need to make a counterargument.”

Katherine turned to her mother, her face entreating. “Mama?”

“I never want to discourage you from using and developing your critical thinking skills, Katherine, and that was an excellent presentation, but the answer is no. We are not inviting Jack Kelly to our Christmas party.”

“But _why_?”

“Because he’s lower class,” said Pulitzer.

“You were lower class when you came to America, Father.”

Pulitzer leaned forward in his chair. “No. I was poor. There’s a difference.”

Katherine rolled her eyes.

“It's an important distinction, Katherine,” said Kate Pulitzer. “Your father may have lacked financial resources when he immigrated, but he knew how to behave in polite company. He was raised to be a part of high society, just as I was. Just as you were. Jack Kelly, on the other hand, was not. He does not look the part, act the part, or know the part. We are not inviting him.”

“I can teach him the part, Mama.”

 “Katherine, dear, there is no way that poor boy can learn good breeding in two weeks. Or ever. Good breeding takes a lifetime to instill. Really, we’re doing both of you a favor by not allowing him to come—can you even imagine how embarrassed he’ll feel when he shows up, obviously out of place? Everyone will stare at him, everyone will whisper about him—I can’t imagine he’ll be grateful to you for putting him through that.” 

“Shouldn’t we let Jack decide that for himself?”

Her mother pursed her lips and gave her a look that brooked no argument. So Katherine turned to Joseph Pulitzer instead. “Father, you always champion the working man in _The World_ —why won’t you do that now?”

“Encouraging men to better themselves is not the same thing as inviting them to romance your daughter in a public setting!” He slammed his palm down on the table, rattling Kate Pulitzer’s empty wine glass.

Katherine's jaw dropped. “I _knew_ this wasn’t about Jack’s manners!” She flung her hands in the air. “This is about my relationship with him! You know if you do anything to actively stand in my way, I’ll just dig my heels in further, so you keep acting like you're soooo helpful and accepting, when really you're trying to make things hard and unpleasant for him and me. You think if you pretend to be supportive while actually driving us apart, I’ll cave on my own and then you'll be rid of Jack without upsetting me. Well I’m onto you, and it’s not going to work!”

“He’s not good enough for you!” Kate pleaded. “He’s a fine boy, a nice boy, and yes, he works hard for your father, but Katherine, you’re a _Davis Pulitzer_ , for heaven’s sakes! You need someone like Billy Hearst or Alfred Vanderbilt, not an Irish Catholic from Lower Manhattan!”

“We’ve given you plenty of time to go slumming with Jack," her father added, "And we’ve been as supportive as you could possibly expect us to be.” Katherine snorted at this, which Pulitzer studiously ignored. “But you need to face facts, Katherine. You are approaching marriageable age, and you need to start spending time with suitable young men, not lowborn guttersnipes—no, don’t protest. Even ex-guttersnipes who have steady jobs as newspaper illustrators are out of the question. It’s not appropriate, and it needs to end.”

Katherine spluttered for a moment. “Are you serious?”

“Deadly so,” said her father. “Your mother and I are in agreement on this. Jack is not coming to this party. Our house, our rules.”

Katherine narrowed her eyes and stared both of them down. “Fine. Fine! Your house, your rules?” Pulitzer nodded. Katherine paused for a beat and then gave a wicked smile. “If that’s how it is, then I’m moving out. Your house, your rules; my house, my rules. And in my house, the rule is that if I want to keep stepping out with Jack _and_ invite him to a Christmas party, to _my_ Christmas party, then I can. And I goshdamn will.”

And with that, she spun on her heel and marched upstairs to her room to start packing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oodles of historical notes this time around: 
> 
> I don’t know when the Mabel Mabel rhyme originated—couldn’t find anything online, either. Here’s the full rhyme (there are multiple versions; this is the one I learned): Mabel, Mabel, sweet and able, take your elbows off the table. This is not a horse’s stable, this is a dining room table!
> 
> _Hub rachmones_ means ‘Have pity’ in Yiddish. ☺ 
> 
> The phrase “pep talk” dates back to 1926; “pep” was coined in 1912, as a shortened form of “pepper,” which could be used to mean “energy” at least as far back as 1847.
> 
> Vamoose was used slangily starting in the 1800s. It’s derived from the Spanish word ‘vamos,’ which means ‘let’s go.’ 
> 
> Pulitzer established scholarships for poor kids who wanted to go to college to learn high-skilled, white-collar professions but couldn’t afford to do so.
> 
> ‘Kiddo’ dates back to 1893! I was shocked. 
> 
> Joseph Pulitzer was born in Austria-Hungary to a wealthy and well-respected businessman. After Pulitzer’s father died, the family business went bankrupt, and Pulitzer emigrated to America six years later, his passage paid for by Union recruiters hiring soldiers to fight in the Civil War. After the war, he went through a series of odd jobs, taught himself English, became a lawyer, switched to journalism, and built his American news empire from the bottom up.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Katherine starts planning out her move and Jack is a little bewildered.

Jack was standing out on the sidewalk, his hands shoved in his pockets, waiting for Katherine. They tried to take their lunch breaks together a few times a week, schedules and story assignments permitting. She was late today, though, and when he finally did spot her, her posture undeniably tense and her brows drawn together, his shoulders tightened in sympathy.

“Deli on Beekman?” She said as soon as she walked up to him and then past him, not even pausing to say hello or to slip her arm through his.

“Sure,” he ventured, jogging a few steps to catch up with her. He gauged the thunder in her eyes and decided not to reach for her hand. He still wasn’t very good at handling Katherine in moods like this. With the boys you could distract them with food, josh your way out of it, or punch them in the shoulder and tell them to cut it out. And on the rare occasions that none of those things worked, you could shrug it off and leave them to sulk. But Katherine was harder. The boys’ anger was clear and quick, and even when their frustration was directed at him, he didn’t take it personally. Friendship and family had its ups and downs, and the boys and he would always come back together. Katherine, though—Katherine could leave him whenever she wanted. She had options, and Jack wasn’t her best one.

On some level he knew these fears were stupid, that Katherine truly cared for him, that she would never just up and leave him without telling him and trying to work things through, that she wouldn’t abandon him because of one dumb comment –and heck, today he hadn’t even done anything to make her mad, he _knew_ she wasn’t mad at him, so why couldn’t his brain just believe that?– but he couldn’t help it. Even after a year and a half together, he was still waiting for the other shoe to drop. Her reassurances, her kisses, her smiles and attention, the way she always went to bat for him without him even asking her to—it should have been enough. But somehow it wasn’t. Heck, if his ma and pa hadn’t stuck around for him, why would she? Not that death was the same as breaking up, but in both scenarios he ended up alone. And part of Jack still ached and raged with the certainty that his parents could’ve tried harder to stick around. That if they’d really wanted to, they could have lived longer. That if they’d really cared about him, they would have. But they hadn’t. Because he wasn’t enough. He wasn’t worth it. And someday Katherine would figure that out, too, and it would all be over.

They settled into a booth at Korngold’s and, gathering his courage, Jack laid his hand on top of hers. “Okay, darlin’, what’s botherin’ you?” Maybe her parents had finally put the kibosh on things. Maybe this Christmas party had ruined everything. He was on borrowed time, and maybe today was the day it had run out.

She sighed and started squashing her soggy French fries with her index finger. “No one will take my phone calls about apartments.”

 _Oh._ He relaxed. _See, Jack? She’s not mad at you, you idiot_. “Doin’ a story about tenement housing?”

“No,” she said, scrubbing her finger through the mushed fries. “Trying to get an apartment.”

“ _What_? Geez, Ace, lead with that!”

She barely reacted. “People keep hanging up on me when I say I’m looking to rent a place for myself! And when they don’t hang up right away it’s only because they want to tell me they aren’t running a whorehouse or renting to someone who’s just going to break the lease in a month, anyway, because of course female renters are always on the verge of getting married and jumping ship on a contract.”

He squeezed her hand. “Whoa there, Ace-- back up. Why are you looking for an apartment, anyway?”

She blinked. “Oh. Sorry. Um, so I asked my parents about inviting you to the Christmas party, and they said no, and I said fine, that I’d just move out and host my own Christmas party, one where I get to make the guest list myself.” Her eyes lit up. “I’m staying at Darcy’s for now, but as soon as I find a place, I’m inviting you, the boys, Darcy, Billy, and a few other people –maybe Ralph? Though that’d probably make Mama and Father mad– and it'll be the best Christmas party you’ve ever been to!” Her expressions became increasingly animated as she warmed to her theme. “I’ll serve delicious food, I’ll light the place up with candles, and maybe I can find an old upright piano to buy so we can sing Christmas carols, too. Or do you think Crutchie would be willing to play his harmonica? Do any of the other boys play anything? Davey seems like he’d be musical, maybe I can rope him into something. I need to start furniture shopping as soon as possible, too-- you can’t have a party without cozy chairs and a big table to spread all the food on. And I’ll need a Christmas tree! What do you think about decorating it with glass baubles? Should I top it with a star or an angel?” Jack said nothing; he was still trying to process this curveball. She mistook his silence for indecision. “Hmm. I guess I can settle on that later. I’ll need to start making paper snowflakes now if I want to have enough to hang from the ceiling, though… Oh, and if you’re awfully good,” she said, chucking his chin, “I might even hang up some mistletoe.”

To Katherine's disappointment, Jack completely ignored the prospect of mistletoe.

“Hold on a second, there, Ace—you’re moving out over a Christmas party?” He really could not puzzle this girl.

“What?” Katherine looked confused—she’d long since moved beyond the news of her impending move and jumped on to thoughts of playing hostess in the fully decorated apartment she hadn’t yet found. “Oh. No! No, it’s not really about that—it’s that they still don’t accept you… _us_.” She bit her lip and looked up at him, her face searching his for signs of anger and disappointment. “I’m really sorry, Jack. I honestly thought they’d say yes. I didn’t mean to promise you something I couldn’t deliver.”

She looked so sincerely miserable, and all over something he hadn’t wanted in the first place but that she felt he deserved—damn if he didn’t love this girl. “Heck, I don’t care about the party,” he said, “I’m much more worried about you movin’ out on account of what your parents don’t like me. Are you sure about this? It’s a big step.”

She shrugged, her thoughts flitting back to her imaginary apartment. “I’ve been thinking about it for a few months now, actually. I expect them to treat you the way they’d treat a boyfriend they’d picked out for me, and every time I hope they’ve come around, they do something to show me they haven’t. Enough is enough.”

Jack couldn’t help smiling at the word ‘boyfriend.’ He always did. It still made his heart flip to hear Katherine call him that. He wiggled his eyebrows at her suggestively, and she slapped at his hand. “You goof! Yes, you’re my _boyfriend_. Do you want me to say it louder?” She stood up in her seat and, even as Jack yanked at her hands in an attempt to get her to sit back down, she raised her voice to carry over the hum of the lunch rush and announced, “Hello, everyone! I would just like to say that this fine young man here is my boyfriend, and we are very happy together.”

This garnered a few scattered claps and whistles, and one “Good for you, sweets,” from a frumpy man waiting at the counter for his food. Katherine bobbed a curtsey and sat back down in the booth, adjusting her skirts so that they wouldn’t wrinkle beneath her.

Then she continued. “At any rate, I thought they’d gotten over us being together, but no, they’re still as petty as ever, and I’ve had enough of dealing with that. It’s not fair to you or to me, and if they can’t respect my choices and my thoughtful, kind, smart, and _extremely_ handsome boyfriend, then it’s time I put some distance between us.”

Jack’s smile widened. “Extremely handsome, eh?”

“I’ve never met anyone handsomer,” she said, grinning. “Humbler, sure, but hey, there’s no sense in being humble when you know you’re the best, which he does.”

Jack’s entire face crinkled as he dissolved into laughter. “Okay, Ace. If you’re set on this—an’ you’d best be sure you are, ‘cause I don’t want ya movin’ just on account of my feelings, I’m a big kid, I can handle snubs—then whaddya say I help ya out with the apartment hunt?”

She clapped her hands in delight. “Oh, Jack, would you? I didn’t want to ask right off, I know you’re busy, but things really haven’t been going well, and it’d make such a difference if you came along and helped with the calls and the apartment visits. I'm sure I wouldn't be having this much trouble finding a place if I were married.”

He gave her a rakish grin and doffed his cap. “I’m at your service, Mrs. Kelly.”

Her eyes sparkled. “Why thank you, husband dearest.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Historical notes (of a sort):
> 
> I'm not sure how hard it would've been for a young single female to rent an apartment in those days, but I can't imagine it was easy. One of my family friends was telling me recently how when she was in her late twenties, in the 1970s, a landlady refused to rent an apartment to her and her female friend because one of them would surely get married soon and leave the other in the lurch and unable to pay the rent. The landlady would happily rent to two unmarried men, though! (Who did this woman think all the young single ladies were getting married to?!) So anyway, all that to say that I think having Jack around will help Katherine land a fictional apartment in my fictional story.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jack and Katherine go apartment hunting.

Katherine bounced in place on the steps in front of the lodging house, her long woolen skirt swinging around her. Jack better come out soon, because it was awfully cold this morning, and she didn’t want to have to decide whether to stay out here and freeze her nose off or go inside and see a house full of half-naked (sometimes all naked) newsies getting ready for their day. She was pretty comfortable with the boys, yes, but not _that_ comfortable.

“Hiya, Ace!” Said Jack, bursting through the front door and beaming at her like it was springtime and the world was brand new. “Or should I say Mrs. Kelly?”

She couldn’t help but smile back. “You can say whatever you want to today, Jack, since you’re the one doing me a favor.”

He raised his eyebrows and whistled. “Aren’t ya worried you’re gonna regret sayin’ that?”

“A little,” she said, trying not to laugh with happiness at his boyish excitement, “But I’m going to stand by it just the same.” She held out her arm to him. “Now come along, Mr. Kelly, we’ve got a long list of apartments to inspect today, and I want to make sure we have time for a big breakfast before we get started. Iceland Brothers on Ludlow? My treat.”

“Gladly, Mrs. Kelly,” he said, bowing and linking his arm with hers.

***

Their first stop was an imposing brownstone on the Upper East Side. The doorman bowed as they approached, and Katherine smiled. Yes, this was already much better than when she’d been trying to find a place on her own. And they certainly looked the part, she thought, sneaking an appreciative glance at the dashing figure that Jack cut in the double-breasted Chesterfield overcoat she’d given him for his birthday. She’d forced him to accompany her to the tailor to get the darts and fit just right, and it had been worth it. He looked quite the gentleman, and his sober charcoal ensemble was the perfect contrast to her own scarlet melton coat.

The real estate agent showing the apartment greeted them just as respectfully as the doorman, and Katherine was so taken with Jack’s obvious pleasure at this that she nearly didn’t respond to the man’s solicitous “Good morning, madam, may I take your coat?”

“Oh, yes, thank you,” she said, shrugging off the heavy wool and handing it to the man, who hung it up on a coatrack placed just inside the doorway. Jack cast her an uncertain look and then followed suit. He’d made sure to wear his newspaper office clothes today, and although they weren’t quite as fancy as Katherine’s usual wear, they were of good quality and would pass muster in a casual setting such as this one. She’d made sure of that when she’d taken him shopping last year, back when he was just starting out at _The World_ as a rookie illustrator.

“My name is Hawkins, and I will be showing you the apartment today. It’s a pleasure to meet you both. Now, right this way, please, Mr. and Mrs. Kelly,” said the realtor. He waved them down the hallway and into a large drawing room. Jack’s jaw dropped. Grand piano, crystal chandelier, dainty end tables, paper screens painted with Japanese gardens pulled in front of the fireplace… people actually lived like this?

Hawkins mistook Jack’s shock for displeasure. “You’ll have to use your imagination a little, of course, you needn’t emulate the current tenants’ tastes, and I realize that it can be distracting to view a place when it’s fully furnished, but the residents were really quite adamant on that point, unfortunately. They won’t be moving out until they’ve found a buyer. Or a renter.”

“Quite right,” said Jack, recovering himself and aiming for nonchalance.

Katherine had missed all of this exchange, as she’d gone directly to the window, pulled back the curtains, and been focused on inspecting the frame and the glass. “The seals on these windows aren’t tight; will the owners be replacing them before selling the apartment?”

Hawkins hurried over to her. “I’ll have to ask them about that, Madam. If not, then I’m sure they wouldn’t expect you to pay the current asking price given the, ah, clear inadequacy of the seal.”

Katherine nodded and moved into the master bedroom. She was out of sight, but Jack heard her saying, “The ceiling is sagging a little in the far corner—will that be fixed, too? And in the adjoining bathroom here, I noticed that there’s mold in the cabinet under the sink—do you see that? Yes, right here, that’s definitely mold, wouldn’t you agree? How recently were the building’s pipes installed? Have they been weatherproofed?” Hawkins raced to follow her, and his reassurances and apologies echoed back to Jack, who was left blinking in the drawing room. “John, dear?” She called. “Would you come stand in this doorway, please? I need a height reference.”

 _John_? Oh, right, because they were being all fancy today. Jack let out a deep breath, shook his head, and trotted after Katherine.

***

They ended the day in the lodging house kitchen long after sunset, munching on knishes they’d picked up from Yonah Schimmel’s pushcart on Houston Street.

“Well, that was an adventure an’ a half,” Jack said around a mouthful of dough and potatoes. “I ain’t never seen ya be so picky before—all of those places was fit for a queen, an’ you found somethin’ wrong with every single one of ‘em!”

Katherine licked some melted cheese off her fingers. “The devil is in the details, Jack,” she said. “I need somewhere I can trust the handyman not to take advantage of me when he comes to fix a leaky faucet, somewhere I know the doorman won’t tip his unscrupulous friends off to my schedule, somewhere the landlord will abide by the contract once it’s signed instead of raising the rent or kicking me out as soon as he realizes I’m living by myself.”

“An’ you can tell all that by lookin’ at crown molding?”

“Yep,” she said, her triumphant grin a little spoiled by the sauerkraut stuck between her teeth.

Jack gave her a disbelieving look.

“No, really,” she insisted. “You can tell a lot about a landlord and the staff they’ll hire by the way they maintain their properties, and if I can spot a mouse hole in the wainscoting just at a first glance, then that’s not a landlord I can trust. Not when I don’t have to, anyway. Which I don’t.” She reached for another knish but then paused. “Um. Do you hate me now? For being such a snob?”

Jack thought she was joking, but then, seeing the genuine concern in her eyes, he laughed so hard he nearly choked on a gob of half-chewed meat. “What? No! I swear, you get the funniest ideas sometimes, Ace.” He looked her dead in the eyes. “You ain’t a snob, you’s a stickler. They’s a difference. You don’t stick your nose up at somethin’ just for the heck of it—you want things to be right because somethin’ bad could happen if they ain’t. I gets that. If I had the money I’d be more of a stickler, too,” he said, wiping his mouth on his sleeve and then frowning at the stain. “Geez, I hope that comes out…”

Katherine gave a sigh of relief. “Thanks, Jack.” She stood and went over to the sink, where she pulled out a handkerchief and ran it under the water for a few seconds before returning to the kitchen table and rubbing at his dirty sleeve.

He leaned over to nuzzle at her hair and nibbled gently at her ear. “I had a nice time today, Mrs. Kelly,” he whispered.

Katherine ran hot and cold and had to close her eyes to keep her composure. She set the wet handkerchief aside and clenched his wrist. “So did I, Mr. Kelly,” she murmured, her heart racing. She bit her lips as he ran his nose down her neck and nipped at a spot of exposed skin at the top of her collarbone. She squeaked in reaction to the softness of his lips juxtaposed against the pressure of his teeth. “Jack,” she gasped, her breaths coming short and fast.

“Mmm?” He said, tugging down the side of her shirt so he could kiss her shoulder and then the tops of her breasts. Katherine simultaneously cursed and gave thanks for her corset—without that corset, there was no way he could have reached her there without unbuttoning her blouse. And if he unbuttoned her blouse, even so much as one button, she knew she wouldn’t be strong enough to stop things from going further. She resolved to let herself go completely if the world gave her that signal. This felt so good, so unbelievably, unutterably good, that, as his strong, stubbled jaw brushed against her bare skin, she both hoped and feared that he’d loose the tripwire by undoing a button. One single button. _That’s all it would take, Jack, just the one, all you have to do is take your fingers and tug…_ She’d wound her fingers into his hair and was making little noises of pleasure as he continued to kiss and hum and set her on fire. _Please, Jack, please, one button and I’m yours…_ He was so happy to be making her happy, and he was pressed up against her, and he was warm and soft and _hers_ —heavens above, she could hardly stand it. A shudder rippled through her at his next kiss, and she tipped her head back with a moan, her mouth open, completely unaware of anything but Jack and her growing desire for him. He chuckled at her inarticulacy and the vibration of his lips and chest against her made her gasp. This was almost too much. If only he’d set her free by unfastening a button. Just one. Just one would be enough to undo her completely, because she’d undo the rest of the buttons herself if she had to. And then she’d start on his. All of them. She _would_. Even right here in this public kitchen.

 _Public kitchen._ “Jack!” She yelped, startling him off of her. His eyes were glazed and it took him a second to refocus.

“Yeah?”

“We’re in the kitchen of the lodging house, we can’t be doing this!”

He whined and his shoulders sagged, but he stopped. She scooted away from him and swallowed hard, her eyes running over his mussed hair and the rumpled collar of his dress shirt, which gapped just enough so that, when he leaned over the way he was doing now, she could see the top of his chest and his lean muscles, and – _get a_ grip _, Katherine!_ She brushed the back of her hand across her mouth to bring herself back to earth, and then she stood and turned away from him to catch her breath, rearranging her hair and smoothing out her skirts. When she felt she’d recovered herself enough to face him again, she turned and saw that he’d laid his head down, stretched his arms across the kitchen table, and was looking at her wistfully. Just look at those green eyes of his, how was she supposed to resist them...

“Stop it!” She stamped her foot. “You’re too… you’re just… you’re im- _poss_ -ible, Jack Kelly!”

“I know, Mrs. Kelly,” he murmured, his eyes devouring her from four feet away. They stayed like that for a while, neither willing to give ground or break the spell. Katherine wasn’t sure how long they’d have stayed frozen in that tableau had it not been for the unmistakable tap and hop sound of Crutchie coming down the stairs.

“I’ve got to go,” she whispered, her eyes wide. Jack merely smiled like a cat that had gotten into the cream, his expression languid and satisfied, and Katherine dashed for the door, not even pausing to put on her coat as she flew out of the kitchen, through the door, and into the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Iceland Brothers established their restaurant/deli/whatever in 1888 on Ludlow Street. Will Katz joined the brothers in 1902 and then bought them out. Since 1903 it’s been Katz’s Delicatessen (at some point it moved to its current location on Houston St., and it’s where they filmed that famous When Harry Met Sally orgasm scene).
> 
>  [Yonah Schimmel’s knish bakery is also a real thing. ](http://www.amny.com/eat-and-drink/oldest-restaurants-in-new-york-city-1.8999200)


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Katherine invites the newsies to a party, and Jack gets kissed. A lot.

Jack was in the lodging house’s living room, playing cards with Race and Henry –and losing badly– when Katherine waltzed in. Without explanation, she slapped a key down on the empty produce box the boys used as a makeshift table, sending cards flying every which way.

“Tah dah!” She sang.

“Katherine!” Race yelled, tossing his cards down in disgust. “Ya just ruined a high stakes poker game!”

Jack tried to stifle his laughter as the two other boys glared at Katherine. He thought her timing was pretty much perfect, seeing as Henry had been about to clean his clock. Katherine didn’t look especially apologetic, anyway—not at all apologetic, actually. “Poker, schmoker,” she said. “ _I’ve_ got an _apartment!_ ”

Henry rolled his eyes and bent over to start gathering the tattered playing cards off the floor. “What’s that ta me? I’s more interested in how I was winnin’ this here game, an’ now you gone an' messed it all up.”

“ ‘What’s that ta me?’ ” Katherine mimicked, highly affronted. “It’s only going to be the location of this year’s finest Christmas party, to which all the newsboys of Lower Manhattan are invited. Is _that_ somethin’ ta you, Henry?”

Race’s mouth fell so far open that his cigar fell out of his mouth, and Henry popped his head up over the side of the produce box to goggle at her. “A Christmas party? You’s havin’ a Christmas party?”

“That’s right,” she said, looking very pleased with herself.

Race clamped his hands on the edge of the produce box, his ragged fingernails digging into the soft wood. “An’ we’s invited?” 

“Have you two spent so long repeating the headlines that now you can only repeat what other people say?” She asked. “Yes, you’re all invited— _of course_ you’re all invited, it’d hardly be a party without you there, would it? Christmas is about spending time with friends and family, after all.”

Race leapt to his feet and tugged Henry up after him, doing a little improvised jig with his bewildered friend. “We’s goin’ to a Christmas party!” He stopped hopping around for a second and turned to Katherine. “Will there be food? An’ mulled wine? And—” he gasped and his eyes widened at the thought, “A _real life_ Christmas tree?”

Katherine beamed. “Yes to all of that. December 23rd, 9pm. That’ll give me and Jack time to finish work, you boys time to finish selling the evening edition, and all of us time to make merry and eat all sorts of delicious food. Are you in?” 

“Are we ever,” gasped Henry. He crouched down next to Jack and clapped him on the shoulder. “Stars above, but she is a _peach_ , Jackie boy.”

“Ya don’t have ta tell me that,” Jack replied fervently. “I’s the luckiest man on either side of the Mississippi River, an’ I knows it.”

Race was bouncing impatiently in place next to the other two boys and soon yanked Henry back upright. “C’mon, Henry, we gots ta go tell the rest of the guys!” The two of them raced out of the room and clattered up the stairs, shoving each other as they went.

“Does this mean I’m forgiven for the poker game?” Katherine called after them.

A faint ‘yes’ echoed down the stairwell, followed by whoops and shouts of “You ain’t never gonna believe it, guess what…”

She looked to Jack, who was still sitting on the floor, and gave him a huge smile before plopping down next to him. “You were my good luck charm,” she said. “They accepted my application for the fourth place we saw as soon as I submitted it. No way they would have done that if you hadn’t gone with me the other day.”

“Happy ta help,” he said, tucking a lock of her hair behind her ear. “December 23rd, eh? That’s comin’ up fast. Ya gonna be able ta move everythin’ in by then?”

“I wanted to ask you about that, actually,” she said. “I’ve packed up my room at home, hired movers to haul everything down to my new place on 4th Street, and ordered furniture to be delivered, but I could really use help dragging the furniture into the spots I want it and getting things set up. Are you free on the 22nd?”

 “The 22nd? Ain’t that cuttin’ things awfully close?”

“It’s not ideal,” she admitted, “But things are busy in the newsroom, and then we have some of Mama’s Southern relatives visiting the week before Christmas, and… well, basically, that’s the only day I can fit it in. It’s okay if you’re busy, though, I can ask around.” 

“I ain’t lettin’ no other man help my gal move inta her first solo apartment!” Jack retorted. “ ‘Course I’m free then. An’ if I’m not, I’ll find a way ta be.”

“Thanks,” she said, giving him a smile that scrunched her nose up.

He leaned over and bopped her on the nose with a calloused finger. “Ain’t nothin’ ta thank, darlin’,” he said, grinning. “I can’t hardly wait ta play house with ya.” 

She swatted his hand away and giggled. “You’re incorrigible!”

“Always, macushla. An’ ya wouldn’t have it any other way, would ya?”

“No,” she answered, tugging off his newsboy’s cap and scooting over to kiss his forehead. His eyes closed as she did so, and she shifted into his lap, her legs straddling his waist. She cradled the back of his neck with one hand and traced the side of his face with another, drawing an involuntary shiver from him as she ran her cool fingers down the side of his face to the small scar on his chin. “No, I wouldn’t,” she repeated, tightening her legs around him and bending to kiss his eyelids, then his right cheek, and then his lips, which parted quickly at her touch.

He braced his hands against the floor and arched his back as she kissed her way down his neck and began playing with the buttons of his dress shirt, teasing the top one undone. He could hear the blood pounding in his ears, and he felt her fingers brush his chest as they moved to the next button. Was she really doing this? He’d wanted her to do this for so long that he thought this might just be an unusually vivid dream. He couldn’t be sure, though, because his eyes were still closed, and he couldn’t remember how to open them. He felt his heart stutter at the pressure of her next kiss, right at the top of his breastbone, and then he realized that he was no longer in control of his breathing, either. Was he losing his mind? He’d been with other girls before, sure, but none of them had ever affected him like this. Everything in the universe had narrowed to him and Katherine and the points of contact between them. The taut muscles in her legs, the softness of her palms, the sweet intensity of her kisses—the rest of the world had fallen away, and he didn’t care if it never came back. So damn it, Jack, why on earth would you ruin this by talking? But he did. He had to. “Ace,” he moaned, pulling back from her. “Not that I want ya ta stop, ‘cause I don’t, heaven knows I don’t, but how’s this any different from the kitchen?”

He felt her deflate beneath him, and instead of her nimble fingers and soft lips against his chest, he felt the weight of her head and her burnished auburn hair. She’d laid her hands in her lap, and he moved his up to hug her.

“It’s not,” she said in a small voice. “Thanks for stopping me. I don’t know what—I mean, I do, but—” She paused and resettled herself against him. “Just hold me?”

“Of course,” he said, tipping his head down to lay it on top of hers.

After a moment, she shifted awkwardly and turned her head so that her ear was against his heart. She listened to it thump, tracking the rhythm as it slowed from the frantic pace she’d brought it to and settled into something reliable and reassuring. _Do it, Katherine. Do what you came here to do_. “The key I brought, Jack,” she said, her voice still timid, “It’s for you.”

“What?”

“I, um, I want you to have one so that you can let me in if I lock myself out.”

He pushed her backwards so that he could gauge her expression. He took in the entreating look in her big brown eyes, the faint laughter lines on her face that would someday deepen into wrinkles and crow’s feet, and the nearly imperceptible tremble in her lips that gave away her nervousness. He raised an eyebrow.

“Well, that’s not entirely true,” she said, dropping eye contact with him and rubbing at her nose. She took a deep breath and then exhaled slowly. “I want you to have it because…” He felt her fidget in his lap. “Well, if you have a key then you don’t have to knock when you come over.”

“What, you think I can’t jimmy open a fire escape window?” He smirked.

“No, I—” She made a frustrated noise and clenched her fists so tightly that her knuckles turned white. “Why is this so hard?” Her eyes darted up at him and then flitted away. “I want… I want you with me, Jack. Whenever you want to be. I want my apartment to be a safe place you can go to, any time of the day or night, whether I’m there or not. I want… I want you to have a key because…” She screwed her eyes shut and said the rest of the words so low that he could barely understand them. “When I’m with you, I’m home. And I want you to feel that way, too.”

His face softened from skepticism to tenderness, and he pulled her back into a warm and welcoming hug. “I’d like that, Ace. I’d like that an awful lot.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a linguistic note for this one:
> 
> "Macushla" was a term of endearment that Irish immigrants in America used at least as far back as the early 1800s. It's a bastardization of the Irish words "mo chisle," which mean "my heartbeat," and, since Kelly is an Irish last name, I thought it might be nice for Jack to use it. Acushla (from "a chuisle," or "heartbeat") was another one.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Katherine moves in to her new place and there is some emotional drama that I hadn't planned on.

All things considered, Katherine supposed that move-in day could have gone a whole lot worse. Her parents had given her the silent treatment when she and the movers picked up her things from the Sloane Mansion, the furniture arrived a bit later than expected, and the streets were icy, but at least her parents hadn’t yelled at her in front of strangers, it wasn’t as if she needed the furniture at precisely 1pm, and the movers dropped only one box on the sidewalk.

She and Jack had conferred and decided that he’d be in charge of greeting the delivery men and movers and directing them to the right apartment, while she’d be upstairs, telling the men what went where. Jack couldn’t help sprinting up the stairs in between deliveries and poking his head in the door ‘to double-check that they found our apartment, Mrs. Kelly,’ as he said, which Katherine knew was really code for ‘making sure these men aren’t bothering you, Katherine.’ She was grateful.

She knew that her career and all that it entailed –the odd hours, the late and solitary nights, the forays into the less savory neighborhoods of the city, the interviews with oftentimes unpredictable strangers– already had her testing her footing on the wrong side of the line between ‘strong, independent, modern woman’ and ‘foolhardy, idealistic, oblivious risk taker,’ and so she was relieved, rather than offended, when Jack looked in on her like this. For all that they considered each other equal in every way that mattered, they were both keenly aware that they lived in a mercilessly unequal world. And just as Katherine’s wealth shielded her from the worst of the abuses Jack had seen, Jack’s masculinity allowed him to walk through life in a way Katherine never could. Together, though, she felt they could navigate anything.

As the normal workday drew to a close, Katherine paid the movers and thanked them for their help. They tipped their caps and headed down the stairs, bidding farewell to Jack as he bounded past them on his way up to the apartment. He sauntered into the living room and leaned casually back onto the doorframe, watching Katherine, who was crouched in a ring of cardboard moving boxes, unwrapping her possessions from the old newspapers she’d used as padding.

She raised her head at the sound of his footsteps and smiled to see him arranged in much the same nonchalant pose he’d affected the first time she interviewed him alone about the strike. She brushed back a damp lock of hair –moving was sweaty work, even in cold weather– and said, “Where were you? The last of the furniture got here ages ago.”

“I was waitin’ for the bed,” he said, moving to peer into the nearest moving box. “Never came.”

“Oh no,” she looked at him in dismay. “I’d planned on spending the night here tonight—I already said goodbye to Darcy’s parents and everything.”

Jack tugged at his newsboy’s cap and hefted Katherine’s typewriter out of the box he’d been eyeing. “I know, it’s a pain. But I’m sure they won’t mind hostin’ ya for one more night.”

She looked sulkily at the porcelain vase in her hands. “I wish my bed were here rather than this thing,” she complained. “I don’t even like it, I don’t know why I packed it.”

“Hey now,” Jack said, looking around the room for a desk or end table to put the typewriter on, “Don’t fret. The bed’ll be here tomorrow. How ‘bout you an’ me go get some dinner an’ I’ll walk ya back to Darcy’s?”

“I guess I'll sleep on the floor,” she grumbled, ignoring his suggestion completely and starting to move from box to box, pulling open the flaps and tossing things on the every which way. “Where’s that box of blankets?”

“Ace,” he said, “Come on, ya don’t gotta sleep on the floor. Just spend the night at Darcy’s, alright?”

She waved him off. “It’s not a problem. It might even be good for my back, sleeping on a hard surface. Squishy mattresses aren’t good for your spine.”

“I’m serious, Ace. Don’t. The apartment will still be here tomorrow and the next night and the next, an’ you can sleep here every single one of those nights. In a bed.”

“Jack, it’s fine. I don’t get why you’re making such a big deal out of this. I can rough it for one night, it’ll be a little adventure.” She started tossing clothes out of one of the boxes. “Did I forget to pack blankets? I guess I could sleep on my clothes, this coat is pretty fluffy…”

At this, Jack quickly set the typewriter down and moved over to catch her hands. “You are _not_ sleepin’ on the floor. Definitely not on your _clothes_.”

“Why not?” She twisted her wrists to break free of his grip and bent to open the next box. “You sleep on a metal fire escape every night.”

“On a bedroll!” He protested.

“I’ll make a mattress out of my blankets, if I could just find them…” She rifled through a set of battered pots and pans.

“That box is marked ‘kitchen,’ Ace, why are you—ugh, that ain’t the point.” He huffed in exasperation. “The point is that sleepin’ on a hard surface ain’t comfortable even with a couple blankets underneath—trust me, I’d know. My back aches somethin’ fierce every mornin’.”

“I’m sure it’s fine for one night.”

“But you don’t _have_ to! Why not sleep in a bed if you can?”

She whirled around. “I could ask you the same thing! If you wanted to sleep in one of the lodging house beds, you could. The boys would even double up for you if you wanted a bunk to yourself.”

He glared at her and rolled his shoulders.

“Well?” She said, her hands on her hips.

“They snores too loud,” he mumbled, turning away and rubbing the back of his neck.

“Oh come on, Jack, I’m not stupid. You’re telling me that the noises Mush makes are louder than the sirens you hear when sleeping outside? Or that Crutchie doesn’t snore, not ever?”

She saw his shoulders rise and fall, but other than that he was frozen in place, his angry breathing the only sound in the room.

“Are you going to answer me or not?” She stepped closer.

“No! I mean yeah, he does, but—this ain’t about _me_ , Kath, this is about _you._ Sleepin’ on the floor when ya have a soft, clean bed waitin’ for ya—it don’t make no sense.”

“Well, you’re not making much sense to me right now, either. You could sleep in a bed, but you choose not to; why can’t I do the same?”

He spun back to face her, his green eyes glittering and his jaw clenched. She eyed his fists, which he was curling and uncurling at his sides, and sucked in a quick breath. She hadn’t realized he was quite this upset. “I can’t—it ain’t—you don’t—I just—” he squeezed his eyes shut in frustration and pressed his lips together in a thin line.

“Okay,” she said, soothingly. “It’s okay, Jack. I didn’t realize I’d touched a nerve. If this matters so much to you, I’ll spend the night at Darcy’s.”

He shuddered and covered his eyes with his hand. Katherine moved closer, reaching to rub his back. “Deep breaths, dear heart, it’s okay.”

He jerked away from her as soon as she laid her hand on his back, and she froze, hand hanging in midair. He hunched his shoulders and gave her a desperate look. “I’m sorry, Ace, I’m sorry, I just didn’t expect—I didn’t know you was gonna touch me, is all.” He swallowed hard and gave her a lopsided smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “The Refuge—” He stopped and shook his head quickly, as if to fling the thoughts out of it.

“It’s okay,” she said, her voice calm and even. “It’s okay, Jack. I’m here to listen if you want to talk, but you don’t have to say anything. You don’t have to explain. It’s okay. You’re okay. I’ll sleep at Darcy’s.”

He backed up against the far wall, his eyes wild and unfocused, and slid down it, his legs trembling even as he sat on the floor. He hugged his knees and buried his head in the space created by his arms. “I can’t sleep in the lodging house beds,” he said slowly. “Not regularly. If I slept inside…” His voice caught. “I can’t. I’d wake the others.” He started to cry. “Damn nightmares.”

Katherine crouched down next to him, her heart aching for her brave, sweet boy. “I’m going to give you a hug now, Jack, if that’s okay? May I touch you?” She saw his head bob in a nod and moved to cradle him in her arms, pulling him close and kissing the back of his neck. He sagged against her, his face still hidden, his back shaking with half-swallowed sobs. “You’re safe, Jack. No one’s going to hurt you ever again, dear. Shhh, shhh, it’s okay.” She rocked him back and forth and hummed a lullaby into his hair, letting him cry himself out. Eventually, his breathing steadied, and the two of them sat, still and quiet, in the slowly darkening room.

“Ace?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you.” He straightened up to face her, his face blotchy from crying and his eyes a fragile, crystalline green.

She gave him a small smile. “Thank you for trusting me,” she said.

He laughed weakly and tipped up his newsboy cap, in a pale imitation of strike leader Jack Kelly.

“How about that dinner and then walking me to Darcy’s?” She asked. “I’ll finish unpacking tomorrow before the party.”

“Okay,” he said, looking up at her through damp eyelashes. “Okay.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jack feeds people sandwiches and Katherine prefers to move boxes around by kicking them instead of picking them up.

Katherine left work early the next day, as did Jack—she’d stocked up a week’s worth of holiday stories in advance, and he’d already submitted enough cartoons to get him through Boxing Day. Their editors didn’t expect people to want hard-hitting news stories until they’d gotten over their New Year’s Eve hangovers, so neither Katherine nor Jack felt bad about handing in fluff stories and generic holiday sketches. Besides, they had a party to pull off.

Jack was already in the apartment by the time Katherine arrived; she’d stopped to purchase an armload of candles and a tree stand and had dramatically overpaid a couple of grimy children to help her carry up a Christmas tree from the precut lot down the block.

“Heya Ace,” Jack said, poking his head around the corner of the dining room. “Ooh, a Christmas tree!” He rubbed his hands together and took it out of the boys' arms. “Thanks for your help, fellas. Can I interest ya in some tea an’ a sandwich afore you go?”

Their eyes widened and they nodded furiously. “I'll put the tree in the livin’ room, darlin’?” He peered around the snow-sprinkled branches and waited for her confirmation before hefting the tree down the hallway. He was back before Katherine had time to unbundle herself from all of her winter outerwear, which was sodden with melted snow and sidewalk slush. He gave her a quick peck on the cheek, drawing a scandalized look from the two little boys, and then he beckoned them into the kitchen.

“So you’ve unpacked the tea already, Jack?” She called after him, struggling with the endless buttons on her boots. 

“Yep,” his voice echoed from the high-ceilinged kitchen. “An’ I picked up some extra sandwiches in case ya skipped lunch. Plenty ta go around.” She smiled as she heard him filling the teakettle and pulling down plates for the little urchins she’d brought home. “Eat up now, boys; carryin’ a tree is hard work."

She decided to leave him in the kitchen for a moment and wandered through the rest of the apartment, trailing her fingers across the pale blue wallpaper and reveling in how much space she had. Her very own place! No more worrying that her parents would be upset about the hours she kept for her job, no more disapproving looks from the staff when she raced down the stairs to meet Jack, no more tiptoeing around her father’s black moods or her mother’s high society friends. All this room, all to herself—she could wander around in her corset and petticoats if she wanted to, or even just her nightgown, and she could sing the songs that got stuck in her head, and she could talk through her stories out loud without anyone giving her funny looks, and—she should’ve done this ages ago, really. 

Walking back to the kitchen, she noticed that Jack had made good progress unpacking her things and moving furniture around. He hadn’t put things where she’d thought they’d fit, but his arrangements were better than what she’d planned. Of course they were—he had an artist’s eye. Katherine could write a bang-up poem about her new place, but Jack would do a better job of decorating it. Which was fine by her. 

“I love how you’ve set things up,” she said, entering the kitchen. “You didn’t have to do so much work on your own, you know. You're spoiling me rotten.”

He shrugged and finished off the last bites of a sandwich. “I had the time, an’ I figure we’ll be pretty rushed later, tryin’ ta get everythin’ ready for tonight.”

“Well, thank you,” she said, reaching for a sandwich that she guessed was turkey on rye. “It looks amazing. If your career as an illustrator doesn’t work out and then your back-up career as a theater set designer falls through, you could have a future in interior decorating.” 

He guffawed. “Me, arrangin' fancy houses? That’ll be the day,” he said, but she could tell he was pleased. “You boys all set?” He asked, noticing that the children had finished off their meal and were starting to fidget.

“Yessir,” they chorused. “Thank you, sir.”

“You’re welcome,” he said, whisking their plates over to the sink. “You bundle up warm now, alright?” They nodded solemnly, and he escorted them to the door, where he supervised them as they pulled their winter wear back on. He showed them a trick to keep their shoelaces from dragging in the snow, tugged their scarves tighter, and tucked their mittens into their jacket sleeves. “Thanks again, fellas, an’ Merry Christmas!” They smiled and waved and scampered down the stairs, their footsteps echoing in the wooden stairwell. He turned from closing the apartment door to see Katherine leaning against the kitchen doorjamb, a half-eaten sandwich in her hand and a dreamy smile on her face. “What?”

 _I love you_ , she thought, but what she said was, “I love how you are with kids. You made their day.”

He scuffed at the floor. “Eh, it was just a sandwich.”

“Not to them, it wasn’t,” she said, coming over to him and taking his hands in hers. “And not to you, either. You know how much that food meant to them.”

His cheeks were rapidly turning pink, and he stared at his feet. “I’d have liked it if someone had done that for me when I was their age,” he mumbled. “An’ I got the money for it now, so.” 

She placed a hand on his chin and gently lifted his head. “You’re a good man, Jack Kelly.” And she kissed him. They didn’t have time for more than that, though—the party was hours away, the floor was littered with boxes, they hadn’t set out the food, and Katherine still had to get dressed in something befitting a Christmas party hostess. 

“Ready ta do some manual labor?” Jack asked, gesturing to the half-unpacked apartment.

“Sure am,” said Katherine, rolling up her sleeves.

They spent the next several hours taking things out of boxes and putting them in their proper places, making a list of odds and ends they’d need to pick up before their guests arrived –soap, table salt, matches to light the candles–, and giggling as they threw crumpled newspaper at each other. Eventually, they agreed that things looked appropriately festive. They’d hung paper snowflakes from the ceiling, decorated the tree with glass baubles and colored paper garlands (Katherine had decided to top it with a star she’d made from foil), and Katherine had found a table runner embroidered with figures from the Nativity scene to adorn the sideboard she planned to pile with food.

As the dark blues and sultry reds of the sunset cast their glow into her new living room, Katherine dusted her hands and moved towards the bedroom. “Well, that was an honest day's work. I guess all that’s left is to get dressed and put out the food.” She shuffle-kicked the box with her clothes in it towards the bedroom door and turned the brass doorknob. It didn’t budge. She tried again, twisting it backwards and forwards, even tugging it to her and pushing it back. “It’s locked!” She looked to Jack, her face frantic. “I can’t get in!”

“Easy there, Ace, let me have a go.” He strode over to help, but his efforts were equally unsuccessful.

“Ughhhh,” groaned Katherine, clapping her hands to her forehead. “How did this happen?”

It was a rhetorical question, but Jack had an answer. “The movers, I guess,” he said, scratching at his neck. “The door musta been set ta lock from the inside, so when they closed it after movin’ the bed in today, well, presto. Locked bedroom.”

She sighed heavily. “At least I have a bed now. That’s a good thing. And I can change in the bathroom, although I’d really rather not…” Her eyes flicked to the window and then back to Jack. “Say, Jack?”

“Hmm?” 

“Any chance you could, uh, climb out the window and into my bedroom?”

“You want me to break inta your bedroom?” He feigned shock. “Katherine Plumber! I had no idea you was so scandalous!”

 She crossed her arms and glared. “Not like that, moron.” 

He was too amused by his own joke to be ruffled by her displeasure. Going to the window, he peered out into the night. “I dunno, Ace, it’s dark out there an' it's pretty high up. I think we should wait an’ call a locksmith tomorrow.”

“Jaaaack,” she whined. “Please?”

“I mean, I could, but I’m already in my party clothes, Ace, an' I ain’t gettin’ these dirty climbin’ in an’ out of no windows. Ya really want I should undress an’ scale the buildin’ buck-naked? ‘Cause that’s what I’d need ta do.” He gave her a wicked grin and bent down to unbutton his suspenders. 

“What? No! No no no no,” she gabbled, running towards him and buttoning his suspenders back on. “Forget I asked. I’ll call a locksmith tomorrow, it’s fine.”

“If you’re sure,” he said suggestively, tugging one of her curls and watching it bounce back into place.

“I’m sure,” she said firmly, swatting his hand away. “Stop teasing.” 

He stuck his tongue out at her and gave her a wink. “Alright. So, what’s left? You get ready in the bathroom, an’ meantime I’ll set out the food?”

“Perfect,” she said. She started kicking her box of clothes towards the bathroom and then froze abruptly. “Jack." She turned around slowly. "I... I haven’t bought any food.”

He snorted. “You’re kiddin’, right?”

She bit her lip and hunched her shoulders up until they nearly touched her ears. “No…”

“Ace!” Jack pulled his cap off his head and slapped it against his thigh.

“I’ve never done this before! I know exactly what food I want to serve, and that’s all Mama taught me—how to plan a menu! The hostess plans the menu and selects the table settings, and then the food just sort of… appears… from the kitchen…” She winced as she spoke and covered her face in her hands. “I can’t believe I just… Oh my gosh…” She crouched down and let out a squeak of dismay.

Jack stood there for a second and then burst into laughter. “Katherine Plumber, you are one in a million.” He laughed until his stomach hurt and he was doubled over on himself. Gasping for breath, he managed to draw just enough air to say, “It’s okay, we’ve got time,” before collapsing into another fit of giggles.

“Jack!” He was nearly set off again by the embarrassment in her voice and the sight of her looking both flustered and indignant, one toe poking through a hole in the bottom of her woolen stockings, but he reined himself in at the look in her eyes and held his hands up in a peace gesture.

“Sorry, okay, yeah.” He wiped the tears from his eyes and allowed himself one more chuckle. “It’s alright, Ace. We’ll divide an’ conquer. You’ve got a list of what ya want ta serve, yeah? Gimme half the ingredients an’ you get the other half. Meet back here in thirty.”

“There’s a lot to carry,” she said doubtfully. “We’re serving the whole lodging house.”

“Okay, so you get Davey ta help ya, an’ I’ll get Crutchie.”

“Can Crutchie… I mean… doesn’t he have his hands full already?”

“Just the one,” Jack said. “An’ ya wouldn’t believe how strong the kid is. Muscles like The Boilermaker. There ain’t no limit ta how much he can carry in that newsie bag.”

“Right,” she said. “I ought to know better than to underestimate him by now.” She reached into her dress pocket and pulled out a paper and pencil-- a good reporter was always prepared. “Okay, then, here’s your shopping list…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> James Jeffries, aka The Boilermaker, was heavyweight champion of the world from 1899 to 1905.


	8. Chapter 8

Davey was struggling through a particularly nasty problem set for school when Katherine knocked on the Jacobs’ door, and even though he’d long since reached the point where the only way to make progress on it was to set it aside, let it percolate in the back of his head, and come back to it later, he’d kept banging his head against the wall.

Sarah opened the door with an apron tied around her waist and broom in her hand. “Well, this is a pleasant surprise,” she said, setting the broom aside.

“Sarah! It’s been a while. Are you coming tonight?” Katherine gave her friend a quick hug.

“Of course! I wouldn’t miss it for the world. I just hope you’ve Les-proofed your place; he’s so excited about this that he’s been bouncing off the walls the entire week. He’s broken three plates since Monday, and when he wakes up the first thing he does is yell how many days are left until the party. It’s very adorable and very annoying—Mama finally told him to go sell the evening edition tonight just so we could get some peace and quiet around here.”

Katherine laughed. “I’ll move everything breakable to the highest shelves, then.” As Sarah beckoned her inside, Katherine said, “I’m here to see Davey, actually—is he around? Do you think he’d be able to help me pick up some food for the party tonight?”

Sarah shut the door to keep out the December chill. “Yes and yes. _Please_ get him out of the house,” she said, shooting a pointed look at her younger brother, who was parked in the kitchen, bouncing the eraser end of his pencil off the table and muttering darkly. “He’s been sitting there for hours, and I swear, if I have to hear him curse Leibniz with leprosy or plague one more time, I am going to throw him out the window.” Her voice wry, she added, “Les’s Yiddish has been slipping since he started spending more time with the newsies, so in a weird way it’s nice when Davey goes off like this—shows Les there’s value in hanging on to his mother tongue, even if it’s only because we have the best insults. But Les isn’t here at the moment, _my_ Yiddish is excellent, and enough is enough.”

Katherine bit her lips to hide a smile. “Got it. Katherine to the rescue!” She marched over to the kitchen table, pulled Davey’s pile of paper away from him, and pushed his hand flat onto the table so that he couldn’t bounce the pencil anymore.

Davey, who had slid so far to the front of his chair that he almost wasn’t even sitting anymore, startled, slipped, and crashed to the ground. “ _Ey! Gai kaken oifen yam, Tzeitel! Du_ —” He looked up and blinked. “Oh. Hi, Katherine, when did you come in?”

Katherine shot a raised eyebrow at Sarah, who replied with an ‘I told you so’ shake of her head.

“Davey. Enough. You need a break.”

“No, no, I’m nearly there, I can finish this before the party if you’d just hand back my work—”

“ _Davey_. Have you even eaten today?”

The gangly boy stopped reaching for the sheaf of papers in Katherine’s arms and drew his eyebrows together in thought. “Umm… I think I had an apple this morning?”

Katherine rolled her eyes and shoved Davey’s homework into her satchel. “Come grocery shopping with me. I’ll give you your work back afterwards, but right now you need some fresh air, a walk, and real food. Pick whatever you want at the store, it’s on me.”

Davey blinked and rubbed his eyes, which were bleary from staring at lines of numbers and letters for too long. “I really need to finish this, Kath.”

Sarah moved over to the table, too, her hand on her hip. “And you will, David. But later, not now. Go help Katherine get ready for the party, okay? Or I’ll finish your homework myself, and you will _not_ like how that turns out.”

“Okay, okay.” Davey rose stiffly from the table, stretched his arms, and rolled his neck from side to side. “I want that homework back as soon as we’re done, though—it’s due the first day of school after Christmas vacation.”

Katherine gave him an incredulous look. “That’s a week and a half away!”

“Yeah, it is.” He looked at her and misinterpreted her shock. “I know, I know, I’m way behind,” he said, his forehead creased with worry. “You don’t need to rub it in.” Katherine and Sarah exchanged glances behind his back as he moved to the door to pull on his coat and cap, but they left it at that. They knew better than to try to argue him into loosening up—when it came to Davey and his studies, it was best to pretty much let him do his own thing and then force him to take breaks when he really needed them. Katherine and the newsies had learned that lesson ages ago; as soon as Davey had stopped selling papers and returned to school, they’d needed less than a week to realize that whenever they attempted to convince him that it was okay to take things a little less seriously, he just clammed up and shut down. But once they stopped bothering him and let him handle his academics the way he wanted to, he was much more willing to let them help him breathe and laugh and be normal when it mattered. “So, where are we headed?” He said, turning around and winding his scarf around his neck.

“Here and there and everywhere,” she said. “I need to buy enough food to feed an entire army—or one houseful of hungry newsboys.”

He grinned. “I’ll bring my newsie bag to carry the shopping home in, then. Sounds like two arms won’t be enough.”

***

Crutchie and Jack weren’t as quick with the shopping as Katherine was, partly because they had trouble reading her handwriting on the shopping list, and partly because they kept getting distracted by the things they found in the store. 

"Hey Jack!" Said Crutchie, hefting a coconut in his hand. "Check this out, you could knock someone out with this sucker if you threw it at 'em."

"What is it?" Jack tore his eyes away from the canned goods and looked over to the produce section.

"Sign says 'coconut,' but it don't look like no nut I've ever seen."

Jack made a face. "It's all hairy an' gross. Like if the Delanceys were food."

"I'd like to chuck one at the Delanceys," Crutchie said, tossing it up and down and acting like he was going to throw it across the store. 

Jack pulled a can off the shelf in front of him. "Didja see these things over here? They's called olives, but they look like rat poop, dontcha think? Who'd wanna eat that?"

"I ain't eatin' nothin' that looks like poop." 

"Amen." 

Things continued in this vein for quite a while. Add to that the fact that neither of them had ever had cause to buy some of the specialty ingredients Katherine wanted —candied ginger, marzipan, nutmeg? Were they fruits? Cookies? Canned goods?— and they took much longer than expected.

Their final stop took the longest, even though they'd spent so many hours there over the years, gazing longingly at the glass displays, that they knew exactly where everything was. They'd purposely saved this place for last, building up the anticipation, hardly believing that they'd finally get to come in and actually buy something. By the time they finally made it to Hirschfeld's Sweet Shop, they were practically giddy with excitement. Crutchie nearly hyperventilated when Jack pushed open the door to the confectionery, the scent of sugar and cinnamon and taffy wafting through the air. They were here for a legitimate reason-- Katherine was making gingerbread houses for the boys, and she'd tasked Jack and Crutchie with buying a wide variety of sweets for the boys to decorate the gingerbread with. They had the license to buy whatever they wanted, and they planned to enjoy every second of it. Necco wafers for shingles and paving stones, ice cream cones for trees, tootsie rolls to squeeze and mold into all sorts of fantastical decorations, licorice for telephone lines or cowboy lassos or killer snakes or whirlpools in backyard ponds, and a mountain of hard candies to decorate façades, rooftops, and landscapes. Jack added two sticks of penny candy canes on top of the lot he placed on the counter –sarsaparilla for him, sour apple for Crutchie– and slapped a crisp ten dollar bill on top of the lot.

Crutchie whistled. “This is gonna be one heck of a party, huh?”

“Now that we’ve got food for it, you betcha. The place looks amazin’, too; I can’t wait for you ta see it! All done up like a storefront window.” The cashier finished ringing up their purchases and handed Jack a few pennies in return, which he slipped into a small coin purse he'd reserved for Katherine's change. The two boys slid the massive pile of candy across the counter and into their newsie bags, which were already bulging with fresh fruit, spices, assorted rolls, jams and jellies, and two smoked hams. “I’m gettin’ hungry just lookin’ at all of this loot,” Jack said, his mouth watering.

Crutchie nodded, following Jack out of the candy shop and onto the street. “I hopes this sour apple candy lasts me to Kath’s place, ‘cause if it don’t, we’ll probably have to go out an’ rebuy half the things in my bag.” He licked his lips. “Just look at these oranges! I ain’t had an orange since my folks was alive. Ma gave one ta each of us kids in our Christmas stockings one year, an’ I ate mine so fast I nearly got sick.”

Jack smiled. “Take it slower this time around, yeah?”

“You bet. I plan on eatin' at least five of 'em, an' I'm gonna savor every slice.” They stopped in front of Katherine’s building, a clean white structure embellished with decorative plasterwork. “Heckuva lot nicer than the lodging house,” said Crutchie, his eyes wide.

“No kiddin’,” said Jack. “Hang on, lemme find the key…” He rummaged through one pocket and then another, pulling out pens and pencils of different colors and weights, a small sketchbook, a ball of string, three marbles, two paintbrushes, several loose coins, half a stick of gum, a rock the size of an egg, and a rag stained with oil paint. “Here we are!” He said triumphantly, finally fishing the key out of the depths of his new coat. “Ya ready ta be impressed, pal?”

“Can’t wait, Jackie boy,” Crutchie grinned and readjusted the crutch under his arm. “Show me how the other half lives.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leibniz invented calculus. All the Leibniz cookies in the world are not enough to atone for that sin. (Or maybe Newton invented calculus. But fig newtons aren’t good enough to atone for the pain he inflicted on me in high school, either. So regardless, I’d say that Davey’s frustration is justified.)
> 
>   _Gai kaken oifen yam!_ is essentially Yiddish for 'get lost!', but literally it means 'go shit in the ocean!', which is so much more colorful! I was listening to an interview with a swear words expert, and he said that Russian probably has the best swears, but even if that's true, Yiddish still has some pretty darn great ones.
> 
> Tzeitel = Yiddish diminutive of Sarah. 
> 
> (I’m relying on online phrasebooks and such for the Yiddish, and my German goes only so far in spot-checking the vocab, so if you actually know Yiddish, please tell me where I’ve screwed it up!)
> 
> All the candy is period-appropriate.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which some of the people in this story prove to be less dangerous in the kitchen than others.

“Here we are, Crutchie. Prepare ta be amazed,” Jack said, turning to unlock the heavy front door. He swung it open with a flourish and was pleased at the shocked look on Crutchie’s face. “Nice, eh?”

“Uh, Jack, I think we’d better get in there quick,” Crutchie said, pointing at the haze of smoke wafting out of the apartment. Jack startled at the sight, grew even more worried as his brain registered yells and shrieks echoing from the kitchen, and ran inside, followed closely by Crutchie.

The two boys skidded into the kitchen, their heavy grocery bags still slung across their chests, to see the room enveloped in smoke and Katherine and Davey screaming like banshees. 

“Put it out put it out put it out!!!” Katherine yelled, smacking at a flaming dishtowel with a battered cookie tray. 

“I am! You are! Aaaaaaaaaa!!!” Davey’s voice soared to new heights as he frantically –and rather ineffectually– used his cupped hands to sling water from the sink towards the dishtowel, which was blazing merrily on the stovetop.

Crutchie and Jack sprang into action. Crutchie grabbed a glass of water off the table and flung it onto the stove, which took care of most of the fire that Katherine hadn’t already dealt with, and Jack followed this up by taking a big mixing bowl and flipping it over on top of the smoldering remains of the towel. Then the four friends stood in a silent tableau, listening to the rattle of the ceramic bowl on the metal stovetop die away. Katherine was breathing hard, drenched in sweat and eyes a little wild. Davey was clutching the side of the sink, beads of water dripping from his fingers onto the floor. Crutchie stood by the kitchen table, surrounded by oranges and apples that had fallen out of his bag as he’d swung around to douse the fire. Jack had both hands pressed firmly on top of the ceramic mixing bowl, his mouth slightly open in shock. He was the first to recover his powers of speech. 

“What the hell happened here?” His eyes flashed and his nostrils flared. He hated surprises.  _Hated_ them. And coming back to your girlfriend's apartment to find it on fire was definitely a surprise.

Katherine blinked but didn’t answer; she was still breathing too hard to speak coherently.

Davey was a little more collected, although not by much. “I, uh, I was wiping down the kitchen counter to get it ready for the next batch of cookies, and…” He looked at the stovetop in disbelief. “Well, I didn’t realize Katherine had put the kettle on, so I put the dishrag down, went to help her mix the dough, and next thing we knew there was smoke and fire and then you guys burst in.” He rubbed his nose and smeared flour across his face. “Guess I must’ve set it too close to the burner. I’m so sorry, Kath. Are you okay?”

Katherine didn’t respond. 

The three boys eyed Katherine uneasily, watching her tremble by the stove, until finally Crutchie couldn't take the tension anymore. “Geez Louise, that was a more excitin’ entrance than I’d planned on.” He lowered himself into one of the simple wooden chairs at the table and looked at Davey. Noting the worry lines on his friend’s forehead, he added, “Fluke accidents like that happen ta everyone, Davey. Now that you’ve had yours, ya don’t need to worry for a while, ‘cause it’s someone else’s turn." He leaned down and started picking up the fallen oranges and apples, inspecting them for bruises. "An’ another thing-- you two’ve gotten your bad luck outta the way afore the New Year starts, which means good things are comin’ your way in 1901.” He leaned his crutch up against the wall behind him and turned to pick up a cookie cutter shaped like a star. “Gives us a good story ta tell at the party, too. Albert’ll love it.”

“That kid loves crazy stories. No matter how badly you tell 'em, he laps up every word.” Davey said with a fond note in his voice. He paused and shot a look at Katherine, who had yet to respond, either verbally or physically, to anything anyone had said. “Well, we're all alright, and none of the cookies burned, either, just the dishtowel, so that’s okay.” Even though he’d phrased this last bit as a statement, he was clearly looking for reassurance. Katherine was alert enough to pick up on this, and she broke her stillness to give him a quick smile. Knowing that she wasn’t upset with him caused the taut lines to fade from his face and allowed him to feel comfortable moving around the tiny kitchen again. He gave Katherine a quick but tight hug, whispered ‘Sorry’ into her ear, and then sat down opposite Crutchie to start cutting out sugar cookies. “Would you pass me the tree cookie cutter, please?” 

“Here ya go,” Crutchie said, and the two boys busied themselves in their baking. 

Jack took advantage of this distraction to pull Katherine out of the kitchen and into the dining room, where their words wouldn’t echo down the hallway. He scanned her face and ran his thumb across her cheek. “Talk ta me, macushla.”

She took a deep breath and stared up at the ceiling. “It was scary,” she said. Jack was glad to hear that her voice was steady. “Smelling smoke and seeing flames again scared me, I won’t lie.” She pursed her lips. “I hate knowing how easily things can go up in flames, how one day your life is full of things you’ve counted on having for a long time to come, and then the next day they’re just—gone. And maybe you’re gone with them…” Her voice trailed off, and she shook her head as if to reset her thoughts. “But that’s how things are, and that’s how they always will be. So I guess we’ve just got to do our best to protect what we have and love it with all we have for all the time we have.” She met his eyes for the first time since he’d entered the apartment in a look that he recognized as a smile she only ever gave to him.

He pulled her in close and stroked her hair as she nestled her head on his shoulder. “Atta girl, Ace.” He held her until he felt her heartbeat slow to normal, and then he said, “Should we go see how the boys are gettin’ on with those cookies?” She nodded, and they returned to the kitchen. 

Davey had set the first batch of gingerbread out to cool and was just sliding in the second. “I think we’ll be done in plenty of time,” he said, knowing how much Katherine wanted this party to be a success.

“Thanks for all your help, boys,” Katherine said, back to her normal poised and amiable self. “I couldn’t have pulled this together without you.”

Crutchie grinned. "I ain't never helped pull off a party before, Kath, an' I have ta say, it's pretty fun." He pressed some sprinkles onto a gingerbread man to give the cookie a wide smile and beckoned Jack over to the table. “Look, Jack, it’s you!”

Jack braced himself on Crutchie's shoulder and leaned down to see. “Aww, ain’t that nice.” 

Davey, who had returned to the kitchen table to keep decorating cookies, raised his head and gave Jack an innocent look. “You know why that one’s you, Jack?”

“No, why?”

Davey grinned and started to laugh even before he said the words. “ ‘Cause he’s got the biggest mouth!”

“Oh really?” Said Jack, arching an eyebrow and squishing a blob of dough on top of another gingerbread man. “Well, this one’s you, ‘cause he’s got the biggest head!”

Davey rolled his eyes and Crutchie snickered. 

Katherine, who was at the stove frying diced potatoes, vegetables, and ground beef into a hearty side dish, said slyly, “Don’t be too hurt, Davey; Jack’s just jealous you've got more brains than he does.”

Jack gasped and clapped a hand to his heart in mock indignation. "First Davey, an' now my own girlfriend, turned against me! That's it, I'm outta here." He rose from his seat at the table. "So long, citizens of New York City-- I'm ditchin' you bums for Santa Fe. 'Cept Crutchie." He gripped his friend's shoulders and shook him back and forth. "Crutchie here is true blue, unlike you two traitors, so he can come with me."

Katherine responded by winking and blowing Jack a kiss. “Now now, dear heart, don’t be too upset—you know how much I love kissing that big mouth of yours.” 

Jack gave Davey a cheeky sock in the arm and went over to his girl, standing behind her to wrap his arms around her waist and kiss the side of her neck. He peeked over her shoulder into the frying pan. “Say, Ace, what’s in those pots back there?”

Katherine frowned. "What pots are you...Oh no!" She said, doing a double take of the stovetop. "One’s pasta and the other is chicken, but I put them on ages ago and forgot about them, so they’re probably ruined…” She yanked the pots from the stove and shut off the back burners, but it was too late—the pasta had blackened and stuck to the bottom of the pot, and the chicken was so tough that even Crutchie refused to eat it. “Ugh! I hate cooking!” She growled at the charred pasta and the overcooked chicken, slamming both pots in the sink. “Baking is fine, baking has steps to follow, but cooking is a nightmare! It’s all improvisation! Juggle three things at once, season this to taste –never mind if your taste isn’t anyone else’s taste, just please yourself–, add in a dash of this and a pinch of that and a handful of those– and no, we're not going to tell you how much a dash and a pinch and a handful are supposed to be, so just guess and hope you're right!" She grabbed a fork and started jabbing angrily at the ruined pasta. "Stupid cookbooks, I swear the people who write them sit there thinking 'Ha ha, isn't it funny that you might end up with something inedible?'" Finding she was making little to no progress with the pasta, she hurled the fork across the room in disgust. "Pasta is dumb. Cooking is dumb. And," she said, turning back to the boys, "I have small hands, so tell me, please, how am I supposed to measure accurate handfuls of anything? It’s ridiculous!”

Jack did a remarkable job of hiding his laughter, managing to keep his face completely still as he guided her over to the table and motioned to Davey to move so she could sit where he was.

Still pouty-lipped, Katherine said, “You don’t need to move, Davey. There’s enough chairs for all of us, and I don’t care where I sit.”

“No, Kath, you sit there; I need Davey over here with me,” said Jack. “I’m takin’ over as the head of cookin’ in this here restaurant, an’ he’s gonna be my sous-chef.” Katherine started to protest, but Jack cut her off. “A while ago you said I’m spot–- spon–- _spontaneous_ , remember? Sounds like that’s just what ya need ta be a good cook. Little bit of faith, little bit of magic, little bit of confidence and swagger and belief that it’s gonna turn out great, right? I got alla that in spades. So you an’ Crutchie finish up the baking, an’ Davey an’ me will get to fryin’ up a feast for a king.” He started pulling out utensils and rummaging through the shopping bags. “Or a feast for the Kings of New York, as the case may be.” 

Davey began washing off fruit and vegetables, peeling cloves of garlic, deboning the plucked chickens, and wielding Katherine’s paring knife with surprising dexterity and assurance. Humming to himself, he sliced and chopped and julienned his way through the piles of food in front of him. As soon as Davey finished with one set of ingredients, Jack would toss them into one of the pots and pans simmering away on the stove, the contents of which he tested liberally in order to adjust the spices. Soon, the kitchen was filled with the intoxicating smells of Jack’s efforts, which included fried pork cutlets seasoned with pepper and lemon juice, honey-glazed carrots, and arborio rice cooked in white wine and thickened with onions, chicken, and parmesan. Plates and bowls heaped with food began piling up on the tiny kitchen counter as Jack churned out dish after dish, until finally there was no room left. At that point, Katherine abandoned her baking and began transferring food out to the dining room and living room, arranging things so as to allow as many boys as possible to serve themselves at the same time. 

The baking was progressing nicely, as well. Crutchie had cut out all of the gingerbread cookies, decorated every last one of the almond sugar cookies with colored sugar and sprinkles, and moved on to dipping the Scottish shortbread in melted chocolate. He was keeping an eye on the Christmas breads, too --braided challah, honey cinnamon twist bread, and a Swedish tea ring-- checking to see how much they’d risen and if they were ready to bake yet.

Davey chopped up the last of the parsnips and reached across the counter to sample the thinly sliced potatoes that Jack had just finished frying up. “These are incredible, Jack,” he said, reaching for another one. “You’re a really good cook.”

Jack whacked his friend’s hand with a wooden stirring spoon. “Hey now, those’re for the party. No pre-samplin’ the wares.”

Davey raised his eyebrows. “You’ve been eating your way through everything you make!”

“How else am I s’posed ta know when it’s done? You ever heard of a cook what don’t try his own food?” Jack turned back to the stove.

Davey thought for a moment. “Well in that case, I’m just testing to make sure I sliced the potatoes right.”

Jack rolled his eyes. “Fine. One more, but that’s it.”

Davey’s eyes lit up and he quickly shoved another piece of potato into his mouth, sighing with happiness. He tested his luck by reaching for another, hoping that Jack was distracted by a beef stew that was close to bubbling over, but Katherine reentered the kitchen at that very moment. She snuck up behind him, smacked him on the back of the head, and whisked the bowl of potatoes away to the dining room, well away from Davey’s wandering fingers.

Davey rubbed at the sore spot and watched her leave. “Hey, Jack,” he said. “Thought of a Christmas present for Katherine yet? ‘Cause if not, you could teach her how to cook. Practical and sweet. Just like Kath.”

Jack adjusted his newsboy’s cap and then dragged his forearm across his face to wipe away some of the sweat that had left his brown hair sticking damply to his forehead. “Huh. That idea ain’t half bad, Davey." He stirred the stew a few more times and turned the burner's temperature down. "I already got Ace her present, though. Got most of it done last night, an’ some of the boys helped me wrap up the last details today." He started rifling through the cabinets for a bowl large enough to hold all of the stew and said, "I’ll keep that suggestion in mind for the future. It's a good one.” Having found a large metal bowl, he turned to Davey and grinned, his face dimpling. “I'm gonna save it for the far distant future, though—have ya seen the eyes she’s been makin’ at me tonight? I tell ya what, the oven ain’t the only thing in this kitchen that's turned on.”

Davey snorted and gave Jack a look that was a mix of exasperation and amusement. “Most of the ways I want to respond to that end with me getting punched, so I think that's my cue to go home to pick up Les and Sarah for the party.” He clapped Jack on the shoulder and nodded to Crutchie. “See you guys in a bit!” He waved as he left the kitchen, called goodbye to Katherine, and bundled up to head back to the tenement building he called home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter to go! Not sure when I'll have time to write it and post it, but hang in there, it's coming. In the meantime, I hope you enjoyed this fairly long installment. :)


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a party is thrown and important words are said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shape up or ship out is a totally anachronistic phrase, but I like making the boys say idioms, so it stayed. (Shape up would have been used in the sense of 'to progress' around this time; twenty or so years later it would have been used in the sense of 'to improve'; it wasn't until the 40s or 50s -I found conflicting sources- that 'shape up or ship out' came into being.)
> 
> The candy in this chapter is period-appropriate.

Katherine swept from room to room, whisking away empty bowls and checking to make sure that everyone was enjoying themselves. No doubt about it, this was a fantastic Christmas party. It was happier, louder, and livelier than what she was used to, a far cry from the Pulitzers’ staid holiday affairs, and she was loving every minute of it.

“Kath!” JoJo said, tugging at her sleeve as she passed by him down the hallway. “These snowflakes hangin’ from the ceiling—where’d ya get ‘em? They’s beautiful.”

“Oh, I made them,” she said, balancing a stack of dirty plates in her arms.

“You _what_?” Buttons said, standing on his tiptoes and reaching a hand out to examine one of the snowflakes more closely, admiring its intricate triangles and delicate lines.

“All you need is paper and scissors. It’s easy.” Both boys looked at her skeptically. “I could show you how, if you’d like.” Their eyes grew wide and they nodded until their caps almost flopped off. “Okay, let me put these dishes down, and then I’ll be right back with our supplies.”

JoJo hopped onto Buttons’ back in excitement, and Buttons grabbed his friend’s legs and spun him around until they both felt slightly sick and entirely giddy. As soon as Katherine came back with three pairs of scissors and several sheets of white drawing paper, they settled down onto the worn wooden floorboards.

“Alright, so you start out with a square, and then…”

***

Jack smiled as he spotted Katherine plopped down in the hallway, laughing and talking with JoJo and Buttons. JoJo was frowning and holding up two triangles of paper, each with a hole in the middle, while Buttons was attacking another piece of paper with some rather large scissors, seemingly intent on littering the floor with as many snippets of paper as possible. Jack moseyed into the dining room for some more food, where he was promptly hit in the chest with a meatball, courtesy of Finch and his slingshot.

“Finch! Knock it off! This here’s a civilized party, so shape up or ship out!” Jack said, picking the meatball off the floor and inspecting it for dirt.

“Ya gonna eat that, Jackie boy?” Finch asked, shoving his slingshot into his back pocket.

“Sure I’m gonna eat it. Ya really think I’m gonna let somethin’ this tasty go ta waste on account of a second or two on the floor?”  


“Well, it’s the last meatball, is all,” said Finch, rubbing his neck sheepishly.

“Ya shoulda thought of that before ya launched it at me, then,” said Jack, popping the meatball into his mouth and making exaggerated noises of enjoyment. “Mmm, Finchy, ya missed out, that was a meatball fit for the gods.” He gave Finch a cheeky wink and moved into the living room, where a gaggle of boys was crowded around Katherine’s long, low coffee table, avidly decorating their gingerbread houses.

“Mine’s gonna have a sea monster!” Les said, using frosting and blue sugar to spread a moat around his house. “What about yours, Albert?”

Albert was resting his head in his hands and staring at his barren gingerbread house with an almost unnerving intensity.

“Albert!” Race knocked his friend’s elbow off the edge of the table and sent Albert sprawling sideways into Mush, who spilled a bowl of candy canes onto the floor. “Les asked ya a question, ya big galoot.”

“Ya coulda told me so ‘steada shovin’ me,” Albert said sullenly, rubbing at the spot on his arm where Race had punched him. He leaned down to help Mush pick up the candy canes and said, “I was thinkin’ maybe I’d have a baseball diamond in the backyard, Les. Gonna smush some gumdrops down for the bases, since they’s my favorite candy. Might decorate the roof with gumdrops, too. An’ use green gumdrops for shrubs. My house is gonna be fancy, got its own garden an’ everythin’. An’ all the gumdrops I can eat. So no one else use ‘em!”

“A baseball diamond, hmm, I might steal that from ya,” said Race, reaching his hand towards a bowl full of thin pretzel sticks. “But first I’s gotta put the streetlights in,” he said, jamming a yellow gumdrop on one side of a pretzel stick and a white gumdrop on the other, drawing a glare from Albert. “My house is on a street with electricity _an’_ runnin’ water,” Race added, flipping the pretzel stick so the white gumdrop was anchored in frosting in front of the gingerbread house. “If you’s real nice, maybe I’ll invite ya over sometime.”

“Pshaw, your house ain’t got nothin’ on mine,” Mush said with a grin. “Mine’s a castle, look!” The other boys turned their heads to see a gingerbread house coated completely in white frosting, with marshmallow crenellations running along the roofline, a graham cracker drawbridge complete with a licorice pulley system, and a tootsie roll dragon prowling in the backyard.

“I think Mush wins,” said Davey, looking up from tiling his house’s roof with chocolate nonpareils.

“This was a competition?” Mike groaned. “No one told me that, I’da tried harder if I’d known!”

“Even just openin’ your eyes as you decorated woulda been an improvement on that monstrosity,” said Ike, snickering at Mike’s gingerbread house, whose entire right side had been demolished into crumbs, and the rest of which was coated with sprinkles and shards of shattered hard candy.

“Mine went up in a gas explosion,” Mike shrugged. “No other way ta salvage it after I smushed half of it beatin’ Elmer’s sorry butt in an arm-wrestlin’ match.”

“Hey, who wants ta sing some Christmas carols?” Romeo said, poking his head into the room. “Crutchie brought his harmonica!”

Sarah grinned from her seat on the floor, where Les was sitting in her lap as she helped him decorate his gingerbread house. “Tell Crutchie to get on in here, then! I love a good sing-along. Might even know a few of these tunes, thanks to Les singing them around at home all the time.”

Crutchie entered the living room to cheers and whoops, and he proudly waved his harmonica in the air. “Any requests, fellas?” He asked, once he’d settled himself on a wooden storage chest opposite the fireplace.

He was greeted by a chorus of overlapping demands. “The First Noel!” “Angels We Have Heard on High!” “Away in a Manger!” “Hark the Herald Angels Sing!” “Once In Royal David’s City!”

“I second that last one,” Davey said, his eyes twinkling.

“No one knows the lyrics ta that,” said Blink. “We’d all just be sittin’ here hummin’. Play something we all knows, Crutchie!”

“Let’s start with Angels We Have Heard on High, then,” Crutchie said. “Get ourselves warmed up with alla those glorias.” He played them a note to set the pitch, and then he launched into the tune. The boys joined in with gusto, each of them trying to outdo the others by seeing who could get the farthest through the repeated ‘Gloria, in excelsis Deo’ lines in a single breath. Jack was pretty sure Katherine would have won, but she was laughing too hard at the newsies’ exaggerated facial expressions and gaspingly squeaky notes to get through more than one or two syllables at a time.

After that they moved on through several more upbeat carols before settling into the contemplative, somber songs that were Katherine’s favorites. She made her way over to Jack, who was leaning against the far wall, his strong tenor voice soaring to hit harmonies she’d only ever heard in professional choirs. He smiled at her as she twined her hand in his, and she rested her head on his shoulder, listening to the words of mystery and joy vibrate through his body and into hers. Normally she loved to sing, but tonight she stayed mostly silent. She couldn’t explain it, but somehow it felt right to listen to the boys’ earnest efforts rather than add her voice to theirs. Besides, I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day followed by O Holy Night had choked her up, and there was no way she could carry a tune after that.

As the boys’ voices filled the room, she felt as if she were being swaddled in God’s love, a love that was real and bright in the hope and friendship of the young men around her. She closed her eyes and gave thanks for every last one of these boisterous, scrappy, complicated boys, for their honesty and ingenuity, their loyalty and strength, their sass and their smiles. In all the frustration and flurry of fighting with her parents, leaving home, and moving into a new place, she had hardly paused to think about what Christmas truly meant to her, and now all of it crashed over her like a wave. The magnitude of love incarnate, the hope of the world entering life as the lowest of the low, the assurance and freedom she’d been granted by an ancient miracle—every note the boys sang drove these truths deeper into her bones. Spending tonight with them was a gift beyond measure, and she never wanted it to end.

***

All things do end, though, Christmas parties included, and so, at some point long past midnight, Katherine and Jack found themselves giving hugs and waving goodbye to the last of the newsies leaving the apartment for the lodging house.

“Merry Christmas!” Katherine called, shutting the door and turning to Jack. They smiled at each other in the silence, which suddenly felt large and loud with the newsies’ absence. Katherine swept her hair up in a ponytail and then twisted it into a bun to get it off her neck. “That was the most wonderful party I’ve ever been to, and that was mostly because of you. So thank you, Jack.”

“Aw, shucks,” said Jack, adjusting his newsboy cap to keep from blushing. “My pleasure, Ace. You make an excellent hostess.” They stood there awkwardly for a few seconds, and then Jack said, “How ‘bout a nightcap?”

Katherine pursed her lips. “I would, but I need to get back to Darcy’s for some sleep, and I don’t want to wake the house staff up too late on my account.” She gave him a playful nudge and bent to pull on her boots. “So unless you’ve reconsidered about climbing naked onto the window ledge at night and sneaking into my empty bedroom –which, to be clear, is not something I want you to do, in fact I will _kill_ you if you do that– , we’ll have to have the nightcap some other time.” Jack chuckled, and Katherine tugged her left boot back off to adjust her wrinkled stocking. “Walk me home?”

“I’ll do you one better,” said Jack, mischief written all over his face. Eyes shining, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a thick, brass key. “I’ll walk ya ta your bedroom.”

“Jack Kelly! Is that…?”

“Sure is,” he said, tossing the key into the air.

“You had better have a good explanation for this!” Katherine bolted upright and stalked towards her bedroom, losing her right boot, which was on her foot but still unbuttoned, halfway down the hall.

“Well, I think I do, but I’ll let you tell me if you agree,” Jack said, twirling the key around his index finger as he followed her to the locked bedroom door. He gave her a toothy smile and a peck on the cheek before he fit the key into the lock. Then he paused and pretended not to be able to open it.

Katherine stomped her foot. “For heaven’s sakes, Jack, open the cussed door already!”

“Right away, Mrs. Kelly,” Jack said, swinging the door open and ushering her in with a grand sweep of his arm.

Katherine was so intent on glaring at him that she was several steps into the room before she registered anything around her. But when she did, she stopped in her tracks and gasped, her hands flying up to cover her mouth. Jack had transformed the entire left wall of her bedroom into a lush Alpine landscape, complete with craggy mountains, green meadows, and belled cattle grazing on distant slopes. There were wildflowers and butterflies, a wooden split rail fence so weathered and worn as to seem decades old, and a saucy little cuckoo sitting on the branch of a larch tree. She walked over to the wall to trace her fingers over the brushstrokes, wanting to see where Jack’s clever hands had been, to understand some small part of how his mind built an entire forest out of white nothingness.

“It’s beautiful,” she whispered, noticing detail after detail as she moved from one side of the mural to another. “You gave me a whole world for Christmas, Jack.” Her eyes swam with tears, and she stared up at the ceiling, trying to blink them back. “Thank you.” She heard his bare feet move across the room towards her and felt his sturdy, warm body press up behind her own, the planes of his chest and the ridges of his hips fitting perfectly against her. She tipped her head sideways in pleasure as he bent to kiss the side of her neck, a loose tendril of hair falling from her bun and onto his cheek.

“You’re welcome, Ace. I’m glad ya like it.” His voice had shed its playfulness and shifted into something husky and sincere. She thrummed to it, and to him, as his strong hands settled on her hips.

“I love it.” _I mean that I love_ you _. No, don’t say that out loud. Take a deep breath. There you go. Now think of something else._ “It’s… I can’t even explain how I feel right now.” She laid one of her hands on top of his. “Words aren’t good enough.” She paused, her eyes falling onto a red squirrel perched in the lower branches of a juvenile spruce. “I just… I can’t believe you did this for me. When did you even have the time?”

“I came back here last night after droppin’ ya off at Darcy’s,” he said, kissing his way across her shoulder. “Spent most of the night paintin’, an’ left things ta air out while we was at work. Then I made sure ta leave work early enough so’s I could get Specs, Race, an’ Tommy Boy ta help me bring your bed up an’ lock your room afore you got here.”

“So my bed was delivered on time, after all!”

“Mhmm. I just told the delivery men ta put it in the cellar an’ figured I’d ask some of the guys ta help me move it up later. Paintin’ is messy, an’ I didn’t want your bed gettin’ splattered while I worked.”

She laughed. “You sly fox! I never even suspected.”

She felt him slip the side of her blouse down her shoulder so he could kiss the top of her back. “I didn’t know what I could possibly give ya for Christmas,” he murmured against her skin. “So I took a flyin’ leap with this one. Glad it worked out.”

“I love everything you give me, Jack Kelly.” She twisted her head to look at him standing behind her with his head on her shoulder, his expressive face revealing the delight and contentment he felt when he was with her but could never quite put into words. “And your art is amazing. Whatever you touch is a masterpiece.”

He ran one hand up her side, causing her to shiver in want and anticipation. “I dunno about that, but you’s a masterpiece for sure, Ace.” He reached to caress her face. “You’ve been smart an’ beautiful an’ independent since the day I metcha, but somehow ya manages to become even more that way every single day.” She turned in his arms to face him, to see the way his eyes had gone a dark and solemn hazel, the determined set to his jaw, the stubble that had grown since he’d shaved early this morning. “I loves seein’ ya grow inta the woman you want to be, Ace. Bein’ with you, gettin’ ta hold your hand an’ dry your tears an’ watch’ you conquer the world—I’m the luckiest man alive.”

“And I’m the luckiest woman,” she said softly, stretching up to kiss his soft lips. His hands slid back down to her hips, and she started unbuttoning his waistcoat, kissing him hungrily and pulling the brown tweed fabric back from his chest. He helped her tug it off, and her hands moved to make quick work of the front buttons of his suspenders. Next she shifted to his dress shirt, nimbly undoing the long row of small buttons that kept his skin hidden from her touch. He responded by nipping at her lips and untucking her blouse, his fingers slipping up behind the fabric on her back and fumbling at her tightly-laced corset. He groaned in frustration at being unable to touch her directly, but she ignored him and started to tug off his shirt, which snagged at his wrists. He freed his hands from her for a moment so that they could throw his shirt aside, followed by his cotton undershirt, and then, before Katherine had a chance to stare at him the way she wanted to, he was unbuttoning her blouse, his fingers trembling so hard he could hardly grasp the tiny imitation pearls.

He looked down at her, his face suddenly uncertain. “Is this alright? Do you want me to stop?”

She stretched to kiss the scar on his chin and then laid her hands atop his to help him undress her. “Keep going, dear heart. I want this.”

Jack’s breath quickened as more and more of her corset came into view, and then they were both frantically yanking at her shirtsleeves, and he was marveling at the smoothness of her arms, how dainty and unblemished they were in comparison to his own. “You’re perfect,” he exhaled, crouching down to tug off her thick wool skirt and her layers of petticoats. Now she was down to her stockings, garters, chemise, and corset, and Jack paused, swallowing hard at the unhidden shape of her body, the curve of her calves and the swell of her thighs.

Katherine smiled in lazy pleasure, reveling in his reaction to her. Moving languidly, she stepped out of her circle of skirts to sit on the edge of her bed and peel off her socks. Jack scooted across the floor, kneeling at her feet. “Let me,” he said, his voice thick and his face flushed. His fingers felt hot against her skin as he slowly slipped her stockings under the fabric garters tied at her knees and rolled the thick wool down, inch by inch. She shivered as he ran his hand along her leg and bent to kiss each of her feet. “Perfect,” he repeated. “Every bit of you.” He untied the garters and laid them on the floor next to her crumpled stockings.

“Stand up,” she said, her voice smoky and commanding. She beckoned him closer, and although he hesitated, he closed his eyes and moved forward until he stood directly in front of her, his waist at the level of her hands. She reached up to run her hands down his bare chest, which tightened at her touch. She was delighted by the feel of his skin beneath her fingers, taut and warm and smelling of sweat. She giggled at the way her fingers tangled in his chest hair, but she quieted as soon as she saw the white lines of old scars and dark discolorations from burns.

She looked up at him and saw he’d opened his eyes back up to stare down at her as she explored his torso, clearly on edge and gauging her response to him. His jaw was clenched, and his eyes flickered between fear and anger and desire and need. She addressed all of this at once by pulling him flush against her and kissing every last one of his scars, gently at first, and then with such force and passion that she heard him groan and felt him melt beneath her. “You,” she said, pulling back and looking up at him with a fierceness that he recognized from the days she was working on a particularly important story, “You are perfect, too.” Her eyes flicked back down to his chest before returning to his face. “You are my brave, beautiful boy, Jack Kelly, and I love you. I love you with all of my heart. I love you more than anything else in this whole damn world.”

He tensed back up, and Katherine’s eyes grew wide, her hands flying from his body and up to cover her mouth as soon as she realized what she’d said. Her voice squeaked. “Oh, Jack, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to—I mean, I meant what I said, but I didn’t mean to spring it on you like that, you don’t have to respond, oh my goodness, I’m so sorry—” She pulled her legs back from where she’d hooked them behind his knees and pressed them flat against the footboard. They stared at each other for a few moments, her expression one of frantic dismay, his of total shock.

After what seemed an eternity, Jack reached to pull Katherine’s hands down from her face and tilted her head back so he could stoop to kiss her. He cradled the back of her neck with one hand and ran the other down the length of her arm, finding her fingers and clasping them tightly. She felt him smiling against her and tasted the salt of tears on her lips. She wasn’t sure if they were hers or his. Maybe both. When they pulled apart to breathe, she relaxed at pure joy she saw in Jack’s eyes. “I love you, too, macushla,” he said, his voice deep with emotion. “My Katherine. The ace up my sleeve.” He shook his head in disbelief. “My dreams weren’t ever big enough to imagine someone like you, an' yet here you are. You're my somethin' to believe in, Ace, an' I love every last gorgeous, stubborn, wonderful bit of you.”

“I love you, too, Jack,” she said, her smile spreading from ear to ear.

“Say it again,” he begged, anxiety and happiness warring across his face.

“I love you,” she repeated, extending her legs and using them to pull him back in. She placed one hand on the top of his trousers and used the other to find the buttons in the front. She looked up at him, a question in her eyes, and waited for a nod. “I love you,” she said again, undoing his pants and letting them fall around his ankles. She took in the full sight of him, drinking in every inch of his supple form, the cut of his abdomen and the spread of his shoulders, the way his skin was faintly dark even in the dead of winter, the pockmarks and moles and scars that she wanted to kiss and caress and memorize. “I love you,” she whispered, running one hand over the taut skin of his stomach and fingering the waistband of his underdrawers with the other. He tensed and stifled a noise. She settled for kissing his stomach again and brushing her eyelashes against his skin.

As soon as she pulled back, he kicked his pants aside and loosened her hair from its bun, tugging out the ribbon that held up her ponytail. Her hair cascaded over her shoulders, and he bit his lip at the sight.

“Now the corset,” she said, her voice cracking. She stayed perfectly still as he climbed up onto her bed and sat behind her, his knees sliding to touch the small of her back as the mattress sank under his weight. His fingers were steady now, and he undid the laces quickly, freeing her waist and ribcage. He tossed the corset onto the floor and she spun to face him. He sat, his breathing raspy, unable to move. She gave him a Cheshire cat smile. “Well?”

“Perfect,” he affirmed. Her satin chemise was a pale cream that almost made it look as if she weren’t wearing anything at all, but he forced that thought from his head. He wasn’t going to ruin her or take anything she wasn’t ready to give. But damn if he didn’t want all of her, every last, little, oh-so-perfect bit of her. He licked his lips; his mouth had gone dry. “May I kiss you?”

She threw her head back in laughter. “Yes, heart of my heart. Of course.”

He grinned and bent to kiss the top of her breastbone, bracing himself on her thighs. He loved the feel of her legs. He loved the feel of her skin. He loved the feel of her hands on his body and her lips on his tousled hair. He loved her, he loved her, he loved her.

“My turn,” she said breathlessly, clasping his shoulders and pushing him backwards onto the bed. The comforter pillowed around him as she straddled his waist, setting her hands by his elbows and kissing her way from his navel up to his mouth. “Beautiful boy,” she purred, taking his bottom lip between her teeth and tugging gently.

“Katherine,” he moaned. “Katherine, I love you.” He reached a hand to her waist and yanked her down on top of him, practically insensible at the full weight and press of her body on his, the bare skin of her arms and legs setting off fireworks in his head. He quickly realized that he’d made a mistake by pulling her so close, and so he flipped them both sideways. They were still skin to skin, yes, but not quite as intimately so. Jack was lucid enough to give thanks that this had dampened the roaring in his ears, even if his eyelids were still heavy and his brain still muzzy.

Through the haze of Katherine with him in her bed, Katherine in her chemise, Katherine _loving_ him, he registered the happiness on her face and the eagerness of her touch and filed it away for later, for long nights at the office and fights with the Delanceys and the next bout of flu at the lodging house. Every brush of her skin reminded him that he wanted her more than he could say, but he was in enough control of himself to let her take the lead, and she seemed content to kiss and nip and touch only the skin that was already bare. And so he was content with that, too. “I love you,” he said again, stealing the words between passionate kisses.

“I love you, too,” she whispered back, wrapping herself around him as tightly as she could. “Every piece of you that I already know and every secret that I have yet to learn. Forever and always.” She brushed his hair back from his forehead and laid a soft kiss on his brow. She felt as if her veins were full of starlight. Surely Jack would see her glowing and know that she was different now, that he’d made her happier than any human had any right to be, that he’d loosed a part of her that would never return from the heavens. “You beautiful, beautiful boy,” she murmured, nestling her head under his chin and stroking the gentle slopes of his chest. “Stay with me tonight? Sleep indoors in a real bed? I’ll keep you safe.”

“I know you will,” he said, resting one hand on the bare hip exposed by her rumpled chemise, the other stroking her hair. “I trust you, Ace. With all my heart.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THE END!
> 
> I hope you enjoyed it! I wanted something super fluffy after my last two drama-heavy stories, so hopefully that approach worked for you. :)


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